Mary Swanzy

Mary Swanzy was born in Dublin. Her father was a prominent ophthalmic surgeon and her family background was one of comfortable wealth. She had art lessons at home in Dublin and went abroad to study languages in France and Germany. Her family encouraged her artistic talents and following some part-time study in Dublin she went to Paris, where from 1905-6 she studied at the ateliers of De la Grandara and Colarossi. This opportunity allowed her to become aware of Avant Garde art and she attended Gertrude Stein's soirées when she saw the work of Matisse and Picasso.

Swanzy returned to Dublin in 1906 and began her career working as a portrait painter. She also produced some illustration work for advertising and magazines. Despite her familiarity with Modernism, her early work was academic. In the years prior to World War one she spent some time travelling in Europe but later had to return to Dublin. By this time her work had begun to reflect her interest in modernism, indicated by her partaking in the 1914 Salon des Independants. However, the Irish critics were not always sympathetic to her most modern examples.

She continued to travel, visiting Czechoslovakia in 1919, and in 1923 she stayed with her aunt in Honolulu and from there travelled onwards to Samoa. Her paintings of these subjects were exhibited in the USA and Europe.

She spent the later years of her life in London and these paintings are marked by a use of allegory and suggest feelings of desolation.