Mary Swanzy
, Irish, 1882-1978
Title
PropellersDate1942
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions
53.5 x 45.5 cm
Signedlower left: SWANZY
Credit LinePurchased, 2006
Object numberNGI.2006.10
Exhibition HistoryLines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015Mary Swanzy: Voyages, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 25 October 2018 - 17 February 2019: Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, 15 March 2019 - 03 June 2019
Label TextSwanzy studied in Paris in 1905 where she saw exciting developments in modern art at first hand. She became interested in Futurism and in the work of Orphic Cubists such as Robert and Sonia Delaunay. Like these artists, Swanzy celebrated the exhilarating beauty of The Machine Age. In 1926, she moved from Dublin to Blackheath in South London. She painted this work at the time of the Second World War. The dynamic fragmented forms convey the whirl and whirr of mechanical propellers.Label TextThis is a simplified version of another painting by Swanzy known as Futuristic Study with Skyscrapers and Propellors. This painting is a rare response to the machine age by an Irish artist, but also represents a reaction to earlier Modernist movements with which Swanzy had become familiar on her extensive travels in Europe. In particular, the painting calls to mind the art of the Futurists, and their use of ‘force-lines’. It also suggests the influence of the work of Paul Delaunay, which Swanzy had first seen in Paris. Swanzy’s concentration on mechanical rather than organic detail is particularly striking.