Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882 - 1978) Cubist Landscape Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 63.5cm (16 x 25'') Provenance:'' Important Irish Art Sale'', these rooms, May 1997 where purchased by current owners. ...

Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882 - 1978) Cubist Landscape Oil on canvas, 40.6 x 63.5cm (16 x 25'') Provenance:'' Important Irish Art Sale'', these rooms, May 1997 where purchased by current owners. Exhibited: ''Mary Swanzy Exhibition'', Pyms Gallery, London, Autumn 1986, Catalogue No. 12 Literature: ''Mary Swanzy'' by Julian Campbell, Pyms Gallery, London 1986, page 45 (illustrated black and white) Mary Swanzy, born in Dublin, was one of the first Irish Modernist painters. She held fifteen known solo exhibitions during her lifetime in Dublin, Paris, London and America. A further five have been held post-humously, an almost unique achievement in twentieth century Irish art and evidence of her dedication and ambition. Swanzy was introduced to the early Cubist work of Picasso in 1906 at the home of Gertude Stein while studying in Paris. Following the death of her father, an ophthalmic surgeon, in 1913, Swanzy went to Italy to pursue her career. This fine painting, Cubist Landscape, may be classed within the school of Synthetic Cubism where vision becomes the subject of painting. How fitting for the daughter of an eye surgeon to pursue the modernist concerns of seeing. Swanzy first exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1914 at the peak of Robert and Sonia Delauney's influential form of Salon Cubism, known alternately as Orphism or Synchronism. She became a committee member of the Salon in 1920. Swanzy's extensive facility for colour is demonstrated here, using a circular motif she frames the white pillars along a continued linear construct, not unlike that of a formal vanishing point. She breathes life into a formal study by the use of a close palette of subtle contrasts and vivid colour. Swanzy does not follow a rigorous theory but builds on her own knowledge to create a unique interpretation of the emerging ideas of the period. After a period of extensive travel London became her home where she lived quietly, always painting for over fifty years. In 1946 she exhibited with Braque, Vlaminck and Dufy in St George's Gallery, London followed by one woman show there the following year. It has been suggested that she is perhaps Ireland's only Cubist landscape painter. Liz Cullinane 2014

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