GISORS.- Almine Rech opened an unprecedented exhibition, in Picasso’s historic former studio at the Château de Boisgeloup, featuring a selection of paintings and sculptural works by leading artist Sean Scully (b. 1945, Dublin).
Located near the village of Gisors in Normandy, France, approximately 45 miles Northwest of Paris, the Château de Boisgeloup is an 18th century building purchased by Pablo Picasso in 1930. In the years that followed, Picasso used his studio at Boisgeloup to create exceptional sculptures and iconic paintings, expanding his practice across mediums, genres and styles during a very productive creative period. Scully utilizes the entirety of this enchanting setting—presenting nearly a dozen new and recent works within Picasso’s historic studio space itself, as well as the adjacent dovecote, sprawling lawn, and ivy-covered, 13th century chapel.
Almine Rech-Picasso, founder of Almine Rech, explained, “We’re excited to share this intimate and private place with the public, and to draw upon its incredible visual and historical context to create a dynamic platform for Scully’s new and recent work. Bringing Scully’s work together with the rich history of Picasso’s studio allows us to engage with this special place in a new and exciting way, and to create a dialogue with the past and the future through an unexpected and compelling exhibition.”
Titled Celtique, the show comprises paintings from Scully’s ‘Landline’, ‘Madonna’, and ‘Wall of Light’ series, stacked sculptures, and a glass sculpture. Several recent paintings by Scully, which demonstrate the artist’s signature motif of rich, painterly abstraction and expressive rendering of color and texture through the use of repetitive forms, are being presented in the historic studio space itself. In addition, the presentation features two figurative paintings—an unexpected departure from his signature style of abstraction—both titled Madonna (2019). These deeply personal works depict the artist’s son and wife on the beach in Eleuthera. In the neighboring dovecote, Scully’s bronze Coin Stack (2018) represents an abstracted expression of the artist himself and his life—the title referring to a time during his childhood when Scully’s father would bring home tips and count them in stacks on the kitchen table. For the pièce de résistance, 30 Too (2018), Scully’s monumental 10foot-tall sculpture composed of vibrantly painted stacks of aluminum, presides over the Château’s expansive lawn.
