Object Details
- Artist
- Sean Scully, born Dublin, Ireland 1945
- Gallery Label
- Sean Scully says that his stripes "push out into the world, trying to be more than paintings." He thinks of color and light as expressions of life and his thick, multipaneled works are meant to create an experience that is at once physical and spiritual.
- Made with bolted canvases and housepainter's brushes, Scully's paintings evoke the solidity of architecture. Yet Maesta also conjures a more transcendent realm. The work is titled after a famous multipaneled altarpiece by Duccio, the late thirteenth-century Italian painter. The power of Duccio's Maestà (1308--11) emanates from the unbroken rows of angels and saints surrounding the Virgin Mary, much as Scully's stripes, in contrasting lights and darks, appear to vibrate outward into the viewer's space.
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
- Copyright
- © 1983, Sean Scully
- 1983
- Object number
- 2004.1A-C
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 89 3/8 × 119 1/2 × 9 1/2 in. (227.0 × 303.5 × 24.1 cm)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture
- On View
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, 3rd Floor, East Wing
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Topic
- Abstract\geometric
- Record ID
- saam_2004.1A-C
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/vk75f05d109-cf3e-4ef3-bef5-7abab173e1bd
