***WITHDRAWN***
Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978)
The Three Ages of Woman (c.1970)
Oil on canvas, 75 x 62cm (29½ x 24¼")

Exhibited: Taylor Galleries, Dublin, solo exhibition, 1986, from where...

***WITHDRAWN***
Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978)
The Three Ages of Woman (c.1970)
Oil on canvas, 75 x 62cm (29½ x 24¼")

Exhibited: Taylor Galleries, Dublin, solo exhibition, 1986, from where purchased.

This was the last painting on the artist's easel before her death.

 

Mary Swanzys facility for drawing with her brush and extensive understanding of colour sings of the three ages of woman in this work; it is likely to refer to her own life given she was in her late eighties when it was completed. Titled by the current owner with Miss Swanzys knowledge, as she disliked naming her work preferring to see what others would make of the paintings.

 

The central Pierrot figure, a clown or everyman character whose main characteristic is of naïveté is dressed in white, a reference to death perhaps in this case as Swanzy contemplates her own end of life. It echoes a number of earlier works that feature Chinese or Japanese figures. Swanzy revered Chinese painting and her interest in world religions is in evidence from as early as the 1920s.

 

As she became more limited in her ability to travel so her immediate surroundings feature more heavily in her later paintings. The shed was in the garden of the Blackheath home and the little green cat, a porcelain figure from her collection. Her use of the fox may be a reference to her regular use of the term as cute as a fox to describe characters in her knowledge. She remained astute and observant all through her life. The use of animal imagery is a common feature in her paintings from the 1940s; she uses them to build metaphors in the narrative. Her father is recorded as having used animal metaphors in his speech so perhaps a lifelong habit of indirect speech continued in Swanzys painting.

The lively handling of the paint and directional strokes of pure pigment has a freshness and immediacy akin to watercolour in the hands of a master.

 

Swanzy died in 1978 in her nineties painting right up to her death despite arthritis requiring her to tape her brushes to her fingers.

 

Liz Cullinane, September 2019

 

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