Mary Swanzy
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Lot 13
Price Realised:
€48,000
Estimate:
€40,000 - €60,000
Mary Swanzy HRHA, 1882-1978
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Oil on board 21" x 18" (53.3 x 45.7cm), signed
Born to an affluent Dublin family in the late 19th century, being a woman afforded Mary Swanzy the freedom to pursue art, rather...
Read more
Lot 13
Mary Swanzy
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Lot 13
Mary Swanzy
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Estimate:
€40,000 - €60,000
Mary Swanzy HRHA, 1882-1978
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Oil on board 21" x 18" (53.3 x 45.7cm), signed
Born to an affluent Dublin family in the late 19th century, being a woman afforded Mary Swanzy the freedom to pursue art, rather than what would have been perceived as a serious profession. it also provided her with economic stability and the financial resources for foreign travel and study. However, while Swanzys family may have envisaged their daughter becoming a hobbyist, a teacher or, at best, a popular portrait painter, she went on to claim a place at the forefront of the Irish avant- garde, introducing modernist ideas to a deeply conservative Irish public. She was initially attracted to Cubism, and we can see vestiges of it here in the paintings flat, interlocking space. However, while in Paris around 1912, Swanzy identified more strongly with a later generation of artists, like Delaunay, whose curvilinear compositions gave more emphasis to colour and light. In fact, as early as 1914, she exhibited along with Delaunay and other modernists at the Salon des Independents.
By the late 1920s and early 30s, her crisp geometric arcs began to soften, becoming more lyrical, as in this painting. Swanzy infuses the still life with a sense of gentleness and well-being by softening the colours found in the seen world and by converting straight lines into curves.
Swanzy starts with a simple vase of flowers resting on an ornate marble topped table. Behind this, there appears to be an oblong box and an open window, with specific details deliberately lost in a riot of colour, light and movement. Whats important is how Swanzy captures the sensation of light flooding through the window, momentarily blinding us with reflections, and of a gentle breeze fluttering a sheer curtain, swirling the air around and through the canvas. The scene is truly animated, this feeling reinforced by translucent arcs that move your eyes around the painting in a lyrical dance. This application of thin, semi-transparent layers of paint was to become a recognisable feature of the artiists work. Here, Swanzy has used it superbly, giving the painting a fluidity, lightness and delicacy, but without losing the boldness and strength of the underlying composition. She takes a simple still life, deconstructs it, and reassembles it into a poem with its own internal rhythm.
Dr Frances Ruane HRHA
October 2024
CUBIST STILL LIFE WITH YELLOW JUG
Oil on board 21" x 18" (53.3 x 45.7cm), signed
Born to an affluent Dublin family in the late 19th century, being a woman afforded Mary Swanzy the freedom to pursue art, rather than what would have been perceived as a serious profession. it also provided her with economic stability and the financial resources for foreign travel and study. However, while Swanzys family may have envisaged their daughter becoming a hobbyist, a teacher or, at best, a popular portrait painter, she went on to claim a place at the forefront of the Irish avant- garde, introducing modernist ideas to a deeply conservative Irish public. She was initially attracted to Cubism, and we can see vestiges of it here in the paintings flat, interlocking space. However, while in Paris around 1912, Swanzy identified more strongly with a later generation of artists, like Delaunay, whose curvilinear compositions gave more emphasis to colour and light. In fact, as early as 1914, she exhibited along with Delaunay and other modernists at the Salon des Independents.
By the late 1920s and early 30s, her crisp geometric arcs began to soften, becoming more lyrical, as in this painting. Swanzy infuses the still life with a sense of gentleness and well-being by softening the colours found in the seen world and by converting straight lines into curves.
Swanzy starts with a simple vase of flowers resting on an ornate marble topped table. Behind this, there appears to be an oblong box and an open window, with specific details deliberately lost in a riot of colour, light and movement. Whats important is how Swanzy captures the sensation of light flooding through the window, momentarily blinding us with reflections, and of a gentle breeze fluttering a sheer curtain, swirling the air around and through the canvas. The scene is truly animated, this feeling reinforced by translucent arcs that move your eyes around the painting in a lyrical dance. This application of thin, semi-transparent layers of paint was to become a recognisable feature of the artiists work. Here, Swanzy has used it superbly, giving the painting a fluidity, lightness and delicacy, but without losing the boldness and strength of the underlying composition. She takes a simple still life, deconstructs it, and reassembles it into a poem with its own internal rhythm.
Dr Frances Ruane HRHA
October 2024
Sign-up to our auction alert
Signup for personalised Irish art recommendations, invitations to viewings and auctions, articles and more.