Sean Scully: Human

A contemporary master abstractionist responds to a Venetian Renaissance masterpiece.

This generous volume gathers recent works and new, unseen pieces by celebrated New York-based Irish abstract artist Sean Scully (born 1945), who has created a series of new sculptures, paintings, drawings and watercolors directly inspired by the Venetian abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, its vast illuminated manuscript collections and the 16th-century Benedictine church. These works are instantly recognizable for Scully's visual vocabulary of horizontal and vertical stripes, which reflects fifty years of constant refining. Human includes paintings from his Madonna series, Scully's return to figuration after having ceased figurative painting five decades ago.

The fulcrum of the volume is the new and impressive Opulent Ascension, a site-specific sculpture that is Scully's tallest sculpture ever at 33 feet high, constructed from stacked frames, each wrapped in rich and varying colors of felt.