The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) presents selections from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's (SAAM) master set of prints by artist Sean Scully. The Prints of Sean Scully features more than sixty-five works given by the artist to SAAM in 2001 and new works acquired since the original gift.
Scully's prints, woodcuts, etchings, and lithographs range from large-scale compositions to smaller, more intimate expressions of the artist's ideas. The Prints of Sean Scully is on view at the MIA from March 1 through May 4, 2008, after its premiere in Washington and a stop in Naples, Florida.
"It is an honor for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to present work by the internationally acclaimed artist Sean Scully," said Kaywin Feldman, Director and President of the MIA. "We are thrilled to be among the few museums taking part in an important national tour of one of America's treasures."
Sean Scully, who has been making prints for more than thirty years, considers these independent but complementary works to be as significant as his paintings. Using his recognizable block shapes, Scully's richly layered prints explore recurring themes in his work, such as the play of light and shadow, the expressive qualities of color, and the spatial relationships created by the edges of his distinctive abstract forms.
"This retrospective of Sean Scully's prints from the past twenty-five years affirms his reputation as one of the most highly regarded artists and printmakers in the United States," said Dennis Michael Jon, acting co-curator of prints and drawings at the MIA.
Scully was first introduced to printmaking in the early 1960s when he worked for a commercial printer in London. This direct involvement with the craft of printmaking helped Scully develop sensitivity to its expressive character. After concentrating on painting for more than a decade, he returned to making prints with a small, stark line etching, "Princeton" (1982). Even when he began working with professional printers, a year later in 1983, Scully remained in complete control of the process.
The large, bold woodcuts Scully made from 1986 to 1993 have a strong, physical presence. The deep gouges and uneven surfaces of the woodblock prints, such as "Conversation" (1986), create an energized surface of lines and have a rough texture. The triptych format of this print, in which each panel is a different height, is reminiscent of his paintings, with canvases of different sizes and depths butted together to form a single composition.
Scully's abstract imagery conveys emotion and atmosphere. He explores the evocative possibilities of texture, tone, and color in his prints, and the colors, composition, and luminosity of the works are often based on personal experiences. For example, the scratches and scrapes from the backs of plates and the mottled surfaces of his spit-bite etchings conjure the texture of timeworn facades captured in his photographs. The surface texture of "Wall" (1988) evokes the crude boards of fences and doors. Occasional glimpses of paper between areas of color suggest a silver sky seen through a broken fence or an open window. The blue tonality in the left half of "Mirror Yellow" (1998) recalls dusk, while the yellow glow of the right half hints at dawn. Scully is comfortable with these associations, so long as they do not become too literal.
Scully's "Wall of Light" prints from 2000 to 2005 emphasize luminosity and transparency. Their rectangular forms seem to float and overlap, with soft edges that create delicate lines of indeterminate shape between them. These prints are rooted in the artist's hand-drawn forms, his subtle touch humanizing otherwise geometric shapes. These works speak of transience and spirituality.
In 2004, Scully was invited to make lithographs while he was in Paris. He agreed to try the process for the first time since art school, enticed by the masterful lithographs Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made there in the late 19th century. The lithographs Scully made in Paris depart from the refined surfaces, colors, and forms of the "Wall of Light" prints. Scully embraced a more physical, autographic expression in these works. The prints he made, such as "Paris Black" (2004), emphasize the basic principle of the lithographic process, which involves oil and water. For this work, Scully did not clean his brushes carefully, and water accidentally mixed with turpentine and oily ink, creating what he calls a "brutal roughness."
Scully has placed four of the five master sets of his prints in museums around the world. His gift to the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2001 included 131 etchings, aquatints, woodcuts, screen prints, and two artist's books. New work is added to the set each year, which consists of 191 works currently. "Blue Fold," on view in the exhibition, is one of the most recent works to enter SAAM's collection. -- www.artsmia.org
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