IMPORTANT IRISH ART 3 MARCH 2025

52 34 Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978) LA ROUTE oil on canvas signed lower left; with artist’s label and Pyms Gallery label on reverse 21 by 18in. (53.3 by 45.7cm) Frame Size: 28.25 by 25.25in. (71.8 by 64.1cm) Exhibited: ‘Mary Swanzy Voyages’, IMMA, Dublin, 26 October 2018 to 17 February 2019, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, 15 March to 3 June 2019, Limerick City Gallery, Limerick, 20 June to 15 September 2019 Literature: Kissane, Seán, Mary Swanzy Voyages, IMMA 2018, p. 56 Mary Swanzy was an artist that wasn’t burdened with monetary constraints and spent much of the 1920s - when La Route was painted - travelling having gained financial independence with the inheritance from her parents’ estate. During this decade she journeyed through central and eastern Europe to Canada, Hawaii and Samoa among other places, returning in between to Paris to exhibit the fruits of her travels. Her output cannot be neatly characterised chronologically based on her style, as demonstrated in this painting which has a distinctly post- impressionistic style. Swanzy did not immediately adopt artistic trends as she encountered them but rather allowed them to percolate and reveal themselves organically through her work. She witnessed the birth of modern art during her early years in Paris where she moved in the same circles as avant-garde collector and early champion of Cubism, Gertrude Stein. La Route shows the influence of Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) to whom she paid homage in an earlier painting - of the subject he made famous - Mont St. Victoire (c.1918). It employs a harmonious palette and like Cézanne objects in the painting are modelled through Swanzy’s use of colour. A flattened sense of perspective is reinforced by the road which travels from the lower right foreground, through the composition towards the skyline in the upper portion of the painting guiding the eye in a gentle sweeping motion. La Route bears similarity to a number of other French scenes by Mary Swanzy dated to the 1920s and was exhibited in her celebrated retrospective exhibition ‘Voyages’ at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin in 2018/2019. A full-page illustration of this painting was included in the monograph which accompanied that show. Although the precise location of the scene is not given the other examples include a view of the ancient Roman aqueduct bridge, Pont du Gard, in southern France and a skyline in Semur. Adelle Hughes, February 2025 €20,000-€30,000 (£16,670-£25,000 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot34