8.23.04. 2004.
Pastel.
Signed and dated/titled “8.23.04” in the lower right. On Arches watercolor paper (with embossing- and blindstamp). 58 x 77.2 cm (22.8 x 30.3 in), nearly the full sheet. [CH].


• The combination of slightly staggered, asymmetrically intersecting color fields, flowing lines, and warm contrasting colors makes for a striking composition.
• The velvety materiality of the pastel, the painterly brushwork, and the soft edges where hidden layers of color emerge lend the work a remarkably vibrant, sensual quality.
• The artist's pastels can be found in major museum collections worldwide, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

PROVENANCE: Rudolf Grass Collection, Politischer Club Colonia, Cologne.
Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia (acquired from the above in 2004/2005).

"I paint in layers and the borders are complex and undefined. This lends my pictures a genuine connection to time and work: a real person created them, investing real time, real work, and real exploration [..]. I use stripes, bands, lines, and checkerboard patterns to create rhythm. I always want to create new combinations, figures, and connections that are like the rhythm of the music of life [..]."
Sean Scully, 1996, quoted from: Kirsten Claudia Voigt (ed.), Inner. Gesammelte Schriften und ausgewählte Interviews von Sean Scully, Berlin 2018, p. 54.