White Robe
Modern and Contemporary Art

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White Robe
Artwork Details
Artist/Maker
Sean Scully
American, born Ireland, 1945
American, born Ireland, 1945
Date
1990
Medium
Oil on linen
Accession #
1992.5 a-b
Dimensions
Please contact the Museum for more information.
Location
Currently Not on View
Description
Like many contemporary painters, Sean Scully complicates and enlivens the geometry of the grid, which is the fundamental matrix upon which Minimalist philosophy and aesthetic is built upon. Scully’s signature stripes act as endlessly adaptable, neutral building blocks that can be combined in various states of precarious balance—verticals confront horizontals; darks wrestle lights. The thickened surfaces of works such as White Robe are countered by Scully’s geometric composition: “One of my objectives is to make the paintings ‘classical’ in one way—they do use a stable structure—but schizophrenic in another way, in the violence of the abutments.”
Credit
Purchase in honor of Richard A. Denny, Jr., President of the Board of Directors, 1991-94, with funds from Alfred Austell Thornton in memory of Leila Austell Thornton and Albert Edward Thornton, Sr., and Sarah Miller Venable and William Hoyt VenableImage Copyright
© Sean Scully