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Artist: Patrick Swift (1927-1983) Title: The Olive Pickers (c.1970) Medium: oil on canvas Size: 200 x 150cm (78.7 x 59.1in) Framed Size: 200 x 150cm (78.7 x 59.1in) Provenance: Sothebys, British and Irish Art, 10 May 2012 lot 171; Private Collection Literature: Veronica Jane O'Meara (ed.) PS of Course: Patrick Swift 1927-1983, Gandon Editions 1993, p. 204 a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Although Patrick Swift could, and did, work on a very large scale, this canvas achieves a powerful visual impact without being too large for a domestic setting. In Swift's series of paintings of olive trees can be seen a summing up of his career and philosophy: his settling in Algarve in the 1960's ... Read more Patrick Swift Lot 45 - 'The Olive Pickers (c.1970)' Estimate: €25,000 - €35,000 Although Patrick Swift could, and did, work on a very large scale, this canvas achieves a powerful visual impact without being too large for a domestic setting. In Swift's series of paintings of olive trees can be seen a summing up of his career and philosophy: his settling in Algarve in the 1960's and immersing himself in Portuguese art and culture-to the extent that he and his wife Oonagh founded a traditional pottery at Porches. Swift had a high regard for the traditions of the Algarve, in which the cultivation of olives, and the firing of ceramics made from local clays, are of central importance. He was more than a dreamer however, and today Olaria Porches pottery is still a thriving enterprise. In this painting, the figures of two olive pickers merge in with the trees, the branches of which reach skywards. There is no fixed point in the composition; it is full of curves and twisting lines, allowing the artist to convey the energy of life. At the base of the composition, gravity seems to pull the figures of the men earthwards, while above, in a riot of green and purple brush strokes, branches seeking the light of the sun. Although earlier in his career, when he shared a studio in Dublin with Lucien Freud, Swift had painted in a hard-edged Realist style, the handling in this later work is more Expressionist, reflecting his personal development as an artist. Born in Dolphin's Barn, Dublin, Swift was educated at Synge Street, before going on, in 1947, to attend evening classes at the National College of Art, while holding down a day job as a clerk at the Dublin Gas Company. A dedicated artist and theorist, he became well-known in Dublin's art circles, participating in literary gatherings. Interested in poetry and creative writing, he often railed against what he saw as official indifference to the arts in Ireland. He held true to a late-Romantic view, of the artist as someone often at odds with society, who pursues their creative calling irrespective of patronage or support. As a figurative painter, Swift, like Patrick Hennessy and others, was on the margins of the avant-garde art world of the time. During the early 1950's, he shared a studio in Hatch Street with Lucien Freud, who during those years was a frequent visitor to Dublin. Swift's first exhibition, at the Victor Waddington Gallery in 1952, was well received and two years later, an Irish government grant enabled him to set off for Italy, accompanied by his future wife Oonagh Ryan. After a period in England, where he painted and edited the literary magazine X, in 1962 the Swifts settled near the village of Corvoeiro, on the Algarve coast. Swift illustrated several books by his friend David Wright including Algarve, A Portrait and a Guide (1965) and Minho and North Portugal (1968). In Portugal, he became well known as an artist and cultural figure. A decade after Swift's death in 1983, a retrospective exhibition was held at IMMA. In 2001 a second retrospective was held at the Crawford Art Gallery, that toured to Palacio Foz in Lisbon. Peter Murr