Portrait of Lucian Freud in Patrick Swift’s Hatch Street Studio. UPDATE: THIS WAS SOLD FOR 19,000
Meet the young Lucian Freud as seen by the Irish artist Patrick Swift. Between 1948 and 1956, when he was a frequent visitor to Ireland, Freud developed a friendship with Patrick Swift, whose studio on Hatch Street he regularly shared. During this time, the two artists observed one another’s work closely; both were interested in portraiture and, to a lesser extent, still lifes. Swift was still in the early stages of his career while Freud had been critically lauded and celebrated in London with a string of acclaimed solo exhibitions. His work had been added to public collections in England and the US before he was selected to represent Britain (with Francis Bacon and Ben Nicholson) at the Venice Biennale in 1954.
Swift’s first solo exhibition at the Victor Waddington Galleries in Dublin in 1952 was met with critical acclaim. He was, by now, part of a more-or-less bohemian set of artists and writers that included Brendan Behan, Patrick Kavanagh, Nano Reid, and John Ryan; he was also connected to the art dealer Deirdre McDonagh. Freud was introduced to this cultural network through the artist Anne Dunn on his first visit to the city in the late 1940s. On his regular visits to Dublin thereafter, Freud participated in this artistic milieu.
This portrait of Freud at Swift’s studio in Hatch St., Dublin comes up at the James Adam sale of Imporant Irish Art in Dublin on December 8 with an estimate of €20,000-€30,000.