Sea Star: Sean Scully at the National Gallery (National Gallery London Publications)

Had I been able to see inside the book I doubt that I would have bought it. Images rather boring. Please resume reviews/images of contents to assess decisions to buy or not.The parcel had been forced through too small a letter box, ripping the jiffy bag, damaging the front cover and bending the cover leaving creases (hard to photo).Another 'slicing' blow into the hard cover.Presume the heavy parcel fell onto its corner on a tiled floor causing the hard cover to crease.Very disappointed.

This is the exhibition catalogue of “Sean Scully: Sea Star” at the National Gallery London 13 April to 11 August 2019 (1). The first 32 pages contain two introductory essays (2). These are followed by the plates of the paintings at the exhibition, all by Scully except for the Turner from the National Gallery which Scully found inspirational (3). At the end there are two sections of contributions by poets (4), two pages of film stills from Nick Willing’s BBC documentary that preceded this exhibition and a two page biography of events in the artist’s personal and artistic life.THE BOOK is a durable hardback, A4 in height but wider than A4. It seems thin at 127 pages and is easy to handle. All the reproductions are in glossy full colour with a full page for each exhibition catalogue entry and some very close close-ups in the poets’ section. The blurb at the back includes “. . . Using the motif stripes or chequerboards, Scully evokes landscapes and architecture, horizons, fields and coastlines, in which his contemplative forms become reminders of personal experiences and distinctive moments . . .”THE PAINTINGS: Scully does not default to the word “untitled” used by many abstract painters in the past. Everything is named and explanations given. This is fortunate. Each painting has an inspiration that would be lost on the viewer without a name and an explanation. Thus, there are two triptychs inspired by van Goth’s chair painting of 1888 (5). These are titled “Arles Abend Vincent” (a set of three painted in 2013 oil on linen, half chequerboard and half vertical bars) and “Arles Abend Deep (a set of three painted in 2017 oil paint on linen)”. The painting titled “Robe Blue Blue Durrow” references the Book of Durrow, a seventh century illuminated manuscript. Many of the paintings are large and painted on aluminium with broad brush strokes. “Human 3” is composed of four panels each about 215 cm by 190 cm, which are hung across on wall in the exhibition. One painting contains four broad coloured stripes, one has three coloured stripes, one is a 3 by 2 coloured chequerboard and one consists of off-white and off-black horizontal stripes. Each painting has an insert in its centre taken from one of the other paintings in the group. These may be a reference to doors or gateways. Landline China 8 was created in 2018 especially for a particular wall in this exhibition. This painting has wide horizontal stripes of colour. The colours are chosen for their symbolism in Chinese culture - Scully has exhibited in China several times recently. The number 8 is a lucky number in China. He has used black, which represents water and is a heavenly colour. Yellow represents earth. Red is for good fortune. I get the impression that although these paintings are totally abstract, there is a right way to hang them. That is that stripes are horizontal as displayed and not to be displayed as verticals or upside down. (6). There are other paintings in the catalogue (7).THE COVER: The front cover of this book, which wraps across the back as well, is a blow-up pf a detail of the painting Landline China 8. It shows an area where two stripes meet. The brush strokes are clearly visible. This blow-up photograph is also the first thing you see when entering the exhibition.Personally, I don’t get these paintings. In fact, I had never heard of him before the BBC film and this exhibition. The film mentioned that he was well known internationally, but not in the UK. If you do get Scully or you are interested in trying to get him, this well presented book will be of use and interest.__________________________________________________________________________________________________________(1) The actual exhibition is in three rooms. The first room contains the Turner and the smaller paintings. In this room the media are more mixed. There are paintings on paper attached to panels, pastel on paper, paintings on linen and his sophisticated printmaking technique of aquatint spitbite. The second room has larger paintings on aluminium. These are large and as he paints them with a very wide brush, like a decorator. Can this paint still be called oil paint? This room includes a whole wall for the Human 3 series. The third room also has large paintings on aluminium. Here is Robe Blue Blue Durrow (2018) and Robe Magdalena (2017). The third room contains the largest painting in the exhibition, Landline China 8.(2) The first introductory essay is “Homecomings” by Daniel F. Herman, the current Curator of Special Projects at the National Gallery. It gives some historical information about Scully’s training and practice. The second essay is “Sean Scully at the National Gallery” by Colin Wiggins, who is a former Curator of Special Projects at the National Gallery.(3) The Turner painting is “The Evening Star” from about 1830. In the exhibition this Turner is displayed in the exhibition but separate to it. Scully wished to demonstrate his admiration for this painting, but this exhibition is not solely about his response to it. Thus, the exhibition is called “Sea Star” not “The Evening Star”. Turner’s painting is reproduced both as a three-quarter page and then across two pages.(4) At pages 60/61 is a section named “Sea Star”. This is a poem by Kelly Grovier. It is in two parts: i. The Evening Star (1830) and ii. Landline (2017). At pages 63/65 is a section named “Kissable, Almost Movable: Oblongs For SS&VVG&JMWT” by Vahni Capildeo. This contains two pages of floating paragraphs of verse. At pages 94/119 is a section named “Twelve Details from Landline China 8 by Sean Scully” by Eimear McBride. This consists of sets of two facing pages with extreme blow-ups from Landline China 8 used as a background for a single paragraph of text.(5) As well as Turner, Scully also took inspiration from a Van Goth painting of a chair from 1988. This was in the Tate when he first saw it, but it is now also in the National Gallery. It is reproduced in close-up of the chair seat and in full in the margins of one of the introductory essays.(6 ) By comparison, some abstract paintings, such as those by Rothko, are not always hung with the same orientation.(7) Other paintings include “Landline Star” (2017, oil on aluminium, stripes of dark blues, dark reds and dirty white); “Landline Pool” (2018 stripes of dark blues); “Robe Magdalena” (2017 chequerboard in blues and creams); “Robe Blue Blue Durrow” (chequerboard in reds blues and dirty creams). The word “robe” refers to his previous interest in Moroccan textiles; “Landline 12.15.17” (2017 horizontal stripes of dark red, dark blue, dark yellow and cream using pastel on paper); “Landline 12.12.17” (2017 horizontal stripes of grey light blue dark blue dark yellow cream red); There are also some small pictures created using aquatint sugarlift and spitbrite on paper (2018) about 76cm x 63cm. Those titled Cream, Grey, Orange, Pink, Yellow are stripes of black and other colours with the title indicating the predominant colour). Those titles Brown, Rouge, Shade are in chequerboard; There is also a triptych (2013) using aquatint and spitbite etching on paper on three small panels 38 cm x 29 cm composed of horizontal and vertical bars almost a chequerboard; “What Makes Us” (2017) is a set of four pastels on paper fixed to panels, each 152 x 101 cm. These look like small prototypes for Human 3.