Since 1979, the artist Sean Scully has dedicated a large painting to his wife Catherine every year. Thus the chronology of the Catherine Paintings provides an overview of the most important creative phase in the artist's career. For some 25 years, Scully has based his compositions exclusively on the principle of stripes arranged in blocklike patterns. He claims to have been inspired primarily by the vibrant expressive quality of Mark Rothko's paintings and the formal discipline of Piet Mondrian. The artist: Sean Scully, born 1945 in Dublin; studied art in London, Newcastle and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., USA; 1973-1975: instructor at the Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths' College in London; 1975: moved to the US; 1977-1983; instructor at Princeton University in New Jersey, USA.