Beschreibung:

Artist: Patrick Swift (1927-1983) Title: Still Life with Chair and Vase Signature: signed 'SWIFT' lower left Medium: oil on board Size: 61.20 x 46cm (24.1 x 18.1in) Framed Size: 64.5 x 49.5cm (25.4 x 19.5in) Provenance: Ross's Auctioneers, Belfast, 5th October 2011 lot 25; Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Although painted in Portugal probably around 1965, this still-life evokes the time in early 1950s Dublin, when Patrick Swift and Lucien Freud shared a studio in Hatch Street, off Harcourt Street. They also shared an interest in still-lifes, and painted the same motifs, including a dead game bird on ... Read more Patrick Swift Lot 66 - 'Still Life with Chair and Vase' Estimate: €7,000 - €10,000 Although painted in Portugal probably around 1965, this still-life evokes the time in early 1950s Dublin, when Patrick Swift and Lucien Freud shared a studio in Hatch Street, off Harcourt Street. They also shared an interest in still-lifes, and painted the same motifs, including a dead game bird on a chair. Swift moved on to London, before settling with his family in the Algarve in the 1960s, where he immersed himself in Portuguese art and culture. At Porches, he and his wife Oonagh founded a traditional pottery. Swift had a high regard for the traditions of the Algarve, in which the cultivation of olives and the firing of ceramics made from local clays, are of central importance. In this painting, the country chair with its woven rush seat and horizontal and vertical elements, provides a solid framework for the composition. Beneath the chair, a pair of worn boots, and a yellow two-handled ceramic jar-probably for holding olives. On the chair is a candle lantern and a basket with leeks. Perhaps the artist was inspired by a night-time foray to get food for the dinner table. Although when sharing the studio in Dublin with Lucien Freud, Swift had adopted a hard-edged Realist style, the handling in this later work is more Expressionist, reflecting his personal development as an artist. There are echoes of Van Gogh in this painting, a canvas that sums up the essence of living off the land. Born in Dublin, Swift was educated at Synge Street, before going on, in 1947, to attend evening classes at the National College of Art, while holding down a day job as a clerk at the Dublin Gas Company. A dedicated artist and theorist, he became well-known in Dublin's art circles, participating in literary gatherings. Interested in poetry and creative writing, he often railed against what he saw as official indifference to the arts in Ireland. He held true to a late-Romantic view, of the artist as someone often at odds with society, who pursues their creative calling irrespective of patronage or support. As a figurative painter, Swift, like Patrick Hennessy and others, was on the margins of the avant-garde art world of the time. During the early 1950's, he shared a studio in Hatch Street with Lucien Freud, who during those years was a frequent visitor to Dublin. Swift's first exhibition, at the Victor Waddington Gallery in 1952, was well received and two years later, an Irish government grant enabled him to set off for Italy, accompanied by his future wife Oonagh Ryan. After a period in England, where he painted and edited the literary magazine X, in 1962 the Swifts settled near the village of Corvoeiro, on the Algarve coast. Swift illustrated several books by his friend David Wright including Algarve, A Portrait and a Guide (1965) and Minho and North Portugal (1968). In Portugal, he became well known as an artist and cultural figure. A decade after Swift's death in 1983, a retrospective exhibition was held at IMMA. In 2001 a second retrospective was held at the Crawford Art Gallery, which toured to Palacio Foz in Lisbon. Peter Murray, September 2022