Mary Swanzy 'Voyages' exhibition in Crawford Art Gallery - Cork, Ireland.

A new exhibition has recently opened in the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland. It is entitled Voyages and showcases paintings by the Dublin-born artist, Mary Swanzy (1882-1978). It is truly amazing to see these works up close. The breath of artistic styles and techniques in her paintings is also something to behold.

'Cosmopolitan' and 'exotic' are just two of the words that come to mind when I think of Mary Swanzy. She was educated in Dublin and went to finishing school in France. She also went to a day school in Germany. Her artistic training took place in Dublin and Paris and she spent time in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and captured local scenes on canvas. In the early 1920's, she traveled to Honolulu and Samoa, where she painted arrestingly vivid and vibrant outdoor scenes that must have seems like another planet to her painting admirers in Ireland.

Another word that comes to mind in relation to Swanzy is 'avant-garde'. In this exhibition, we can see the vast progress she made during her career, when she was painting in different styles from cubism and futurism to surrealism. If you look below, you can see some of the different styles and judge for yourself. Oh and a word of advice - Go and see this exhibition! It runs until 3 June 2019. More information here.

'Market Scene', 1920-21 (oil on canvas).

'Untitled: Window with Airplanes', 1940s (oil on canvas).

'Allegory', c.1945-49 (oil on canvas).

'Girl on a hill', 1913-15 (oil on board).

'Fieldworkers', 1914 (oil on board).

'Tulips', c. 1918 (oil on canvas).

'Honolulu Garden', 1923 (oil on canvas).