Sean Scully was born on June 30, 1945 in Dublin but spent most of his childhood in London. Scully received his education at the Croydon College of Art and New Castle University until eventually receiving a fellowship at Harvard University in 1972. Following his education, Scully moved to and settled in New York to join the many circles of artists that made up the New York art scene at the time.
Scully is both a painter and prink-maker, who focuses on creating abstract, colorful works. He is known for his thickly stripped canvases. While for a brief period, Scully did experiment with straight lines created with masking tape, in general, his lines are painted on freehand, giving his works a painterly appearance. Scully cites his home of Ireland as his primary influence for this style. Scully’s works have been collected by major museums across the United States and Europe, and he has been the subject of several major museum exhibitions, including the Hirshhorn Museum in Fall 2018. Scully lives and works in New York, and also spends time in Barcelona and Munich.