Larry Scully
Laurence Vincent Scully was born in Gibraltar in 1922. His father was Irish and his mother was South African. Larry spent most of his youth in Portsmouth, England. At the age of 13 years he had to leave school to work at a grocery shop to help support his family.
When Larry was 15 years old, the family moved to South Africa. In 1939 to 1946, Larry served in the South African Permanent Forces working as a draftsman, he also obtained his high school degree.
In the late 1940s, Larry taught at the Polly Street Art Centre in Johannesburg, where he was asked to become director. From 1947 to 1950, Larry studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he met Cecil Skotnes, Christo Coetzee and Esme Berman. In 1963, he became the first person in South Africa to be awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree. Larry’s subject was San influences on Walter Battiss’s work.
Scully became certified as a teacher and from 1951 to 1965 taught Art at Pretoria Boy’s High School, where he followed in the footsteps of his mentor Walter Battiss.
Larry Scully, who was 203cm tall, also painted on a large scale. He decided to paint full time in 1973. He became Professor of Fine Arts and Art History at the University of Stellenbosch, until 1984. Larry was a Trustee of the South African National Gallery through to 1984.
In 1990 Scully located to Stellenbosch and seemed to have drawn him away from the art world in Cape Town, he was increasingly being acclaimed as a son of Stellenbosch.
Larry Scully passed away in 2002.
