Growing up in London, Sean Scully often took his scooter over to Tate Britain, where he spent hours admiring Van Gogh’s Chair (1888). The painting introduced him to the world of abstraction. As a teenager in the 60s, he worked a job loading flattened cardboard boxes onto trucks, where he imagined creating paintings inspired by stacking rectangles on top of each other.
Scully moved to New York in 1975, and that same year introduced his “super grids”—intense, layered patterns of vertical and horizontal lines that bridged American Minimalism and European Op Art, heralding the arrival of Emotional Abstraction. Since then, Scully has received two Turner Prize nominations, lectured at leading universities, and held solo exhibitions at museums across the globe.
Most recently, Scully unveiled seven sculptures along Manhattan’s Broadway, accompanied by a solo show at Lisson Gallery, in Chelsea, on view through February 1. Here, he shares his guide to Hampstead, the London neighborhood where he lives for part of the year.
MIMMO LA BUFALA
A very nice Italian restaurant festooned with pictures of movie stars like Federico Fellini. (mimmolabufala.com)
NINE-O THAI BISTRO
Small and intimate, Nine-O Thai has wonderful food and good vegetarian options. (nineothai.co)
Villa Bianca
An old-style Italian restaurant where locals go — until this recommendation gets out, which might ruin it … (villabiancagroup.com)
TANIA’S OF HAMPSTEAD
This is where I get my coffee. It’s a contemporary feeling place that looks like it could be in New York. (instagram.com)
KEATS HOUSE
Keats wrote four of the greatest romantic poems in this house. He also wrote his famous apple tree poem “To Autumn” in the garden. (keatsfoundation.com)
KENWOOD HOUSE
This stately home has Self-portrait with Two Circles, a fantastic painting by Rembrandt. My wife, the artist Liliane Tomasko, and I like to walk there to see it and then have a salad at the property’s Brew House Café. (english-heritage.org)
THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST JOHN-AT-HAMPSTEAD
This church is where the painter John Constable was buried. You can take a beautiful stroll through 19th-century Hampstead to get there. (hampsteadparishchurch.org)
HAMPSTEAD HEATH
Perched high above the city, Hampstead Heath is an amazing place to walk. My son plays football there. It was designed by Capability Brown, although he never got the chance to see it in its current full glory.
Hampstead Hardware
This shop is so indispensable it was allowed to stay open during the coronavirus shutdowns. (hampsteadhardware.co)
