SEAN SCULLY ELEUTHERA

• Published to accompany a major exhibition of Sean Scully at Albertina, Vienna
• An unexpected turn: an abstract painter becomes figurative
• Touching portraits of Sean Scully's son Oisín
• Richly illustrated, and includes material from the artist's private archive

In a spectacular move, the Albertina presents Sean Scully from a hitherto unfamiliar side with a series of large figurative paintings of his son Oisín playing on the beach of Eleuthera, an island in the Bahamas. Scully's inimitable pictures used to rely solely on paint - applied with a strong, but above all abstract gesture - the new series however appears like a surprising point of reversal. Yet, the new paintings are a return to his earliest beginnings, as, in the 1950s, Scully embarked along the Fauves and German Expressionism from realism into the realm of pure colour. Even today, abstraction, as he sees it, is still infused with memories of figurative sources. This richly illustrated catalogue brings together all Oisín-Paintings, enriched by graphic works from Albertina's collection, extensive material from Scully's private archive, as well as in-depth essays by Werner Spies and Elisabeth Dutz elaborating on this newly obtained painterly freedom.