Sean Scully is a cosmopolitan artist. An Irish-American citizen who grew up in the United Kingdom, and who has spent considerable amounts of time across the world, his work — most often characterised as Abstract Expressionism — can still be said to be American in its aesthetics. There was a recent retrospective of his work at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg. James Dowthwaite and Natalie Erkel, as contributors to this volume and residents of the city, went to the exhibition.