Lot 105
  • 105

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

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
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Description

  • Mary Swanzy, H.R.H.A.
  • propellers
  • signed l.l.: SWANZY
  • oil on canvas
  • 53.5 by 45.5cm.; 21 by 18in.

Provenance

The Artist's Family

Exhibited

London, Pyms Gallery, Mary Swanzy H.R.H.A. (1882 - 1989), 1989, no.1;
Dublin, The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Labour in Art, 1994, illustrated in the exhibition catalogue on pp.6 and 19.

Catalogue Note

The dynamic curvilinear geometry of the moving propellers, thrust by the red diagonal poles into the more subtle target-like arcs in the background, could easily be mistaken as the hand of one of the Salon Cubists, Delaunay, Gleizes or Villon.  Swanzy would have been extremely familiar with the development of their work having studied in Paris circa 1905-7 just as Picasso and Braque were beginning their analytical cubist experiments.  She later exhibited at the Salon des Independents in 1914 alongside Robert Delaunay by which time the Salon Cubists had properly established their own distinct style.  The Futurists were also represented at the 1914 Independents and their influence is clear in the powerful momentum and energy encapsulated in the present work.  

The powerful combination of elements in Propellers clearly demonstrates Swanzy's facilty with and understanding of avant-garde developents in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. It is not, however, simply a pastiche of the Salon cubists' work and is also extremely different from the more analytical style developed by her contemporaries Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. Propellers is a clear manifestation of her own unique modernist language merging all the different influences that she had absorbed in the first couple of decades of the 20th century.  The 1994 exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art dates Propellers to 1942 and the composition does relate to Delaunay's own decorative scheme for the Palace of Air and Railway Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exhibition (see fig.1). It is not inconceivable to suggest that Swanzy may have been in Paris for this exhibition and had Delaunay's installation in mind when painting the present work.