No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

Property from the Studio of Mary Swanzy, H.R.H.A. (1882-1978) Mary Swanzy is a member of a highly talented and original generation of Irish artists, including Jack B. Yeats, Paul Henry, W.J. Leech, May Guinness and Eileen Gray, and their slightly younger colleagues Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett. Yet, although she led an extremely lengthy and productive career, her work remains less well-known and more enigmatic than theirs, both in an Irish and an international context. Even though she exhibited her paintings extensively in her lifetime, both in Dublin and in Paris, and she has been quite well-served in exhibitions over the past forty years, prior to, and after her death, she remains one of the most mysterious of Irish artists. Perhaps this is because, although she was born and educated in Dublin, began her career there, and painted west of Ireland landscapes, much of her career was spent living away from her home country, and in extensive travels in Europe, the South Seas, and a visit to America. Moreover, the majority of her pictures are of non-Irish, and sometimes of deeply symbolic or universal, subjects. In addition to this, she was a highly experimental and eclectic artist. Rather than developing one style, her work passed through many different phases, and displays a surprising variety of influences: from conventional life drawing, to Impressionism, Italian Renaissance painting to Cubism, Cézanne and Matisse, William Orpen, Bosch, Goya, William Blake, Marie Laurencin, Chagall, Surrealism, Franz Marc and David Jones. Swanzy's work can be associated with deft life drawings, portraiture, vigorous landscapes of the West of Ireland or the Dalmatian coast, Impressionistic village and harbour scenes in the South of France, Cubism, both in figure and landscape, and colourful paintings of the South Seas, as well as allegory and satire, developing towards a poetic personal vision in her later years. Sometimes she would alternate between different styles within the same year. Yet running through all of her work is a brilliant and sometimes idiosyncratic draftsmanship, and a rich glowing use of colours, on occasion resembling stained glass, so that her oeuvre remains quintessentially 'Mary Swanzy'. Swanzy was born in Dublin in 1882, second daughter of Sir Henry Swanzy, distinguished Opthalmic surgeon at the Adelaide, and later Eye and Ear Hospitals in Dublin. The family lived in the gracious surroundings of Merrion Square. She took art classes with sculptor John Hughes and other teachers in Dublin. When she exhibited a portrait of her father at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1906 the landscape painter Nathaniel Hone declared it, 'the best picture painted in Dublin for thirty years'. In the summers of circa 1906 and 1907 she went to Paris, attending life drawings in the ateliers of Delacluse, Colarossi and La Grande Chaumière. Paris was a hotbed of artistic activity and in the house of American collector Gertrude Stein she saw paintings by the likes of Picasso and Matisse. In Dublin Swanzy did some black and white illustrations and painted portraits and landscapes. Several of her portraits were exhibited at the R.H.A. A one-woman show was held in Dublin in 1913. Swanzy also made visits to France and Italy. The death of her parents gave her financial independence, and after the end of the First World War she commenced a period of travel, to the South of France, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, Honolulu and Samoa, and America, drawing and painting all the time. Swanzy exhibited at the R.H.A., and at the Salon des Independents in Paris. In 1921 she exhibited at the Dublin Painters Gallery, with Jack B. Yeats, Paul Henry, Grace Henry and others. In 1922 she held a one-person show at the same venue. In the mid or late-twenties she commenced living at Blackheath in London. This became her home, but she continued to travel, and she returned to Ireland for the latter part of the War. Swanzy's painting passed through a period of Cubism, and during the Second World War became strongly allegorical, and sometimes fantastical. In 1968 a large Mary Swanzy retrospective was held at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in Dublin, organized by a committee of admirers, including James White, Anne Crookshank, Norah McGuinness and Dr. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick. This helped to renew interest in her work in her home country. Exhibitions were held at the Dawson Gallery in 1974 and 1976. Broadcaster Andy O'Mahony conducted a fascinating interview with the artist for R.T.E. in 1977. She died in 1978, aged ninety-six. She had continued to paint until her final year. A centenary show was held at the Taylor Galleries in Dublin in 1982. Large exhibitions of her work were held at the Pyms Gallery, London, in 1986, 1989 and 1998. The present collection at Christie's displays how great the extent of her oeuvre was over a career of nearly eighty years, and also shows the amazing range of her artistic styles. The collection includes figure drawings; portraits; bold landscapes painted on the Mediterranean and Dalmation Coasts, and in Co. Donegal; crayon drawings made in Czechoslovakia and Samoa; studies of European villages, ports and fishing boats; colourful Fauvist paintings of women in Samoa; delicate Cubist landscapes; and a range of the figurative and allegorical paintings from the second half of her career: some conveying the sorrow and upheaval of the Second World War, some fantastical or grotesque. Some satirize human folly and confusion, where half-man, half-animal figures grimace or cavort. Some paintings express a sense of personal sorrow or isolation, but there are also gentle scenes of poetic reflection, and of love. Julian Campbell. We are very grateful to Julian Campbell for providing the catalogue entries for the Mary Swanzy collection.

Mary Swanzy, H.R.H.A. (1882-1978)

The Embrace

Details

Mary Swanzy, H.R.H.A. (1882-1978)
The Embrace
oil on board
16 x 12¼ in. (40.7 x 31.1 cm.)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. This lot is subject to storage and collection charges. **For Furniture and Decorative Objects, storage charges commence 7 days from sale. Please contact department for further details.**

Lot Essay

The figures of a man and woman in a passionate embrace stand in the centre of the picture. Their crimson-coloured clothing, and the swirling burning background add to the fiery mood. Some of Swanzy's studies of couples are allegorical or satirical, and it is rare to find such an intense romantic image such as the present work. The amorous embrace, the isolation of the figures, and the long dress of the woman, hint at a romantic story such as Romeo and Juliet. But the man with the bare forehead, ragged clothes and bare feet, suggest a wandering clown-like figure, or a prisoner of war who is returning to his lover in the midst of destruction. The subject matter and style, combining linear drawing and rich colouring, may date the picture to the 1940s. During the War Swanzy painted many pictures of displaced or isolated figures in bleak cities or apocalyptic landscapes. In the present work, the crimson and ashen tones of the figures are repeated in the background of bare earth, burning fires and smoke-filled sky. The textured, abstract and expressive background has surprising resemblances to certain paintings by Turner, Whistler's Nocturnes, and the American Abstract Expressionists. Yet, in spite of the isolation of the figures in Swanzy's painting, the mood of human warmth and passion, and the area of blue above the man and woman's head, add a sense of hope for the future.
J.C.

More from The Irish Sale Part II

View All