24 by 20in. (61 by 50.8cm)

Title: IN THE WINDOW, 1920s
Note: In the Window was included in the celebrated retrospective exhibition 'Mary Swanzy Voyages' at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2018/2019. Curated by Seán Kissane, this show travelled to the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork as well as to Limerick City Gallery of Art with the ambition to reintroduce audiences to her extraordinary achievements and reinstate her as a Modern Irish Master.This painting is an important example from Swanzy's oeuvre, which brings together on canvas a number of artistic movements she absorbed and was inspired by first hand.The Voyages catalogue notes how,"Swanzy's acquaintance with Gertrude Stein is of key importance in assessing the influence of other movements on her style. Although she [Swanzy] stressed that artists like Picasso were 'just little people like myself' in 1905 when she first went to Paris; by 1911 he was the acknowledged 'inventor' of Cubism, an opinion strongly voiced by Stein. Stein owned a portrait of her done, by Picasso, in 1906 at around the time she and Swanzy first met. Importantly in 1909 she purchased Picasso's painting Horta de Ebro and it hung in her apartment where Swanzy would have seen it soon after. The series of works from which Horta de Ebro emerged gave rise to the term 'Cubism'..." [1]Being present at the genesis of one of the most influential movements in art history left its mark on Mary Swanzy but it did not define her and she did not religiously pursue Cubism as her sole visual language. The fact that she made and exhibited most of her Cubist-inspired works after 1920 could be seen perhaps as evidence that she did not simply accept, imitate and reproduce but rather allowed these stimuli to percolate before formulating her unique take on the trend.Furthermore, the artist's interest in, or attraction to, the shattering of light, shape, colour and composition could have had earlier origins; her father - Sir Henry Rosborough Swanzy (1843–1913) - was a prominent ophthalmic surgeon in Dublin so it is perhaps fair to assume she wouldhave had some familiarity already with the workings of the human eye.The present still life comprises a lamp with a conical shade next to a leafy plant in a white pot situated on a window sill. It shows the influence of not just Cubism but its offshoots; Orphism, Italian Futurism and British Vorticism. The lamp, as well as elements of the background, call to mind the shapes of stairs, towers and skyscrapers, all subjectsfavoured by these groups of artists and subjects which Swanzy explored in other paintings. The centre of the plant acts like a vortex from which movement in the composition is generated; its foliage acting like rotors and recalling her later work Propellers, 1942 (Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland). In the upper right corner stripes of pink, red and yellow part to reveal a landscape in the distance. This vignette comprises a Continental view; trees, blue skiesand whitewashed houses with red roofs typical of her French scenes such as Le Village, c.1925 (Private collection) but also calling to mind the Fauvist André Derain's View of Cagnes, 1910 (Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany).In the Window moves the viewer beyond the confines of still life or Cubism taking the eye on a visual journey that traces the trends that inspired her most at this juncture in her career. The Voyages catalogue - an illustrated monograph which accompanied the IMMA exhibition -includes a full-page reproduction of this painting.Adelle Hughes,April 2024[1] Mary Swanzy Voyages, IMMA, Dublin, 2019, p.96
Frame dimensions: 31.5 by 27.5in. (80 by 69.9cm)

Drying cracks visible on close inspection throughout. These areas appear stable. Otherwise very good condition.

oil on canvas

signed lower left; with artist's label and Dawson Gallery label on reverse