John Ryan (founder of Envoy) in his introduction to Swift for the Rosc Catalogue 1971 (which included Swift's portrait of Kavanagh): "'He painted the trees and gardens he cherished and the people he loved; because he was, happily, not unduly concerned, a style that came naturally to him shortly became his own distinctive 'style' — his signature — as uniquely his own as the subject content. Swift's peculiar style reminds us of nobody but the artist — a telling point with a painter who has set no store on this aspect of the job. In Swift we have, then, a man with an observation that is both curious and affectionate — for his attention to details in his subject is paternal and not academic" - Rosc Catalogue, Irish Imagination, 1971; see also Adams auctioneers catalogue notesArchived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine; and in Envoy (1951): "No clichés are employed to simplify his task and no tricks are superimposed to foster an illusion of originality. Academicians and abstractionists will equally deplore him, and probably for the same reasons. He has rejected the debased technique of the one and the dogmas of the other. He paints what he sees." — "Patrick Swift", by John Ryan, Envoy: A Review of Literature and Art, July 1951, vol 5/20
artprice.com
web.artprice.com
"Freud had already shown in London and Paris when he came to Dublin in 1948 [most likely when Swift and Freud first met], partly on a pilgrimage to Jack B Yeats, who had just enjoyed a retrospective at the Tate; and whom Freud declared the greatest living painter… Freud seemed closest to artist Paddy Swift… In September 1951 Kitty Garman wrote to her mother… She mentions Freud working on a painting in Paddy Swift’s Hatch Street studio, Dead Cock’s Head 1951, painted on the same red velvet chair as Swift’s Woodcock 1951." — "Lucian Freud: Prophet of Discomfort", Mic Moroney, Irish Arts ReviewlinkArchived 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine; "He had met Freud by 1949... My grasp of chronology is not always accurate, but certainly the acquaintance was well-developed by 1950 when we shared the ground-floor of a house in Hatch Street together. Lucian, who was staying in Ireland, used to come around in the mornings to paint, so that sometimes when I would surface around ten or eleven I would find them both at work in the studio next door." — Anthony Cronin, Patrick Swift 1927-83, 1993 IMMA Retrospective Catalogue. Freud's visits in the fifties coincided with his courtship of Lady Caroline Blackwood. Photographs by Daniel Farson from this period include Freud, Swift and Behan in Dublin in 1952(artprice.com link).
eckerd.edu
academics.eckerd.edu
"Freud had already shown in London and Paris when he came to Dublin in 1948 [most likely when Swift and Freud first met], partly on a pilgrimage to Jack B Yeats, who had just enjoyed a retrospective at the Tate; and whom Freud declared the greatest living painter… Freud seemed closest to artist Paddy Swift… In September 1951 Kitty Garman wrote to her mother… She mentions Freud working on a painting in Paddy Swift’s Hatch Street studio, Dead Cock’s Head 1951, painted on the same red velvet chair as Swift’s Woodcock 1951." — "Lucian Freud: Prophet of Discomfort", Mic Moroney, Irish Arts ReviewlinkArchived 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine; "He had met Freud by 1949... My grasp of chronology is not always accurate, but certainly the acquaintance was well-developed by 1950 when we shared the ground-floor of a house in Hatch Street together. Lucian, who was staying in Ireland, used to come around in the mornings to paint, so that sometimes when I would surface around ten or eleven I would find them both at work in the studio next door." — Anthony Cronin, Patrick Swift 1927-83, 1993 IMMA Retrospective Catalogue. Freud's visits in the fifties coincided with his courtship of Lady Caroline Blackwood. Photographs by Daniel Farson from this period include Freud, Swift and Behan in Dublin in 1952(artprice.com link).
google.com
"In the late forties and early fifties, there was a house in Lower Baggot Street, where rooms could be rented by the day or night for lectures, meetings, or for any other lawful purpose. Patrick Swift, the artist, had a flat in this house." — Brendan Behan, Interviews and Recollections, Volume 1, E. H. Mikhail (editor), Gill and Macmillan (1982), p. 41 Google Books
jstor.org
"...his ability to communicate certain truths on what one senses to be a deeply spiritual level. It is perhaps this quality in his work which links Swift with the world of poetry and poets. Apart from close family members, poets were almost exclusively subjects of his portraits; the series of poet portraits shown at IMMA [1993 Retrospective] are quite exceptional by any standards and must place him among the very best Irish painters of the twentieth century." — Wanda Ryan Smolin (art historian and writer) in the Irish Arts Review 1994
painterpatrickswift.blogspot.com
"Nano Reid", by Patrick Swift, Envoy, March 1950;article
Rotherham Roadshow, Sunday 3 October 2004 ( Image) The BBC art expert, Stephen Somerville, was highly praising of his work, saying simply of a London tree painting: "I love it". The father of the lady who brought Swift's work to the ARS seems to have been a sort of patron of Swift’s.
theguardian.com
The house at Westbourne Terrace became a "mini-Soho": " The Flat at 9 Westbourne Terrace was itself a mini-Soho" — Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, Gill & Macmillan, 2001; "On many occasions through the early Sixties, writers and painters such as David Gascoyne, Paddy Kavanagh, Roberts MacBryde and Colquhoun and Paddy Swift would gather at Westbourne Terrace in Paddington, our family home at that time. They came for editorial discussions about their poetry magazine, X." — "Christopher Barker on his parents, George Barker and Elizabeth Smart| Books | The Observer". London: Guardian. 20 August 2006. Retrieved 1 December 2009.; "In London Swift, almost inevitably, moved into the Soho bohemia which included Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, George Barker, W.S. Graham, John Minton, William Crozier" — "The fall and rise of Patrick Swift", Brian Fallon, The Irish Times, 11 June 1992
Swift believed in Kavanagh and promoted him. John Ryan: "Swift, in fact, made a decided impact on Kavanagh. It is hard to believe now that it was mainly a cultural impact and that he actually changed the older man's entire approach to poetry." (Patrick Swift 1927-83, Gandon Editions, 1993) Swift was responsible for Kavanagh having 19 poems published in the London-based literary magazine, Nimbus, in 1956, which proved to be the turning point in Kavanagh's career; his next volume of verse, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, was to be directly linked to the mini-collection in Nimbus. Antoinette Quinn (Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, Gill & Macmillan, 2001): "Publication there [in Nimbus] was to prove a turning point … The publication of his next volume of verse, Come Dance with Kitty Stobling, was to be directly linked to the mini-collection in Nimbus, and his Collected Poems (1964)". David Wright (then editor of Nimbus) in his introduction to An Anthology from X (OUP, 1988): "These poems [19 of Kavanagh's poems were published] had been posted to me by Swift, whose brother James had invaded the poet's flat in Dublin, gathered up the trampled manuscripts scattered about the floor, and had them sorted, typed, and bound. One of the carbon copies was sent to me." Antoinette Quinn (Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography), however, says that the idea of Jimmy Swift invading the poet's flat is a myth. Quinn states that Kavanagh had a typescript rejected by Macmillan's ("Macmillan's rejection had left him very downcast") and that subsequently Swift, on one of his trips to Dublin, "was invited to peruse the contents and decided that the poems should be published. He had to return to London… but persuaded Kavanagh to entrust the precious typescript to his brother, Jimmy, to have three copies professionally typed up...[Jimmy,] acting under his brothers instructions... sent one copy each to David Wright and Martin Green in London" (Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2001, pp. 350-351). Wright's version of events is, no doubt, the story put out by Swift himself, and one which would not have displeased Kavanagh. Swift was also instrumental in the publication of Kavanagh's Collected Poems (1964). Martin Green (who put together the collection for MacGibbon and Kee in 1964): "It was following the suggestion of the painter Patrick Swift and the poet Anthony Cronin that the publication came about."(Martin Green in a letter to The Guardian, 2005; see also Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, Antoinette Quinn, Gill & Macmillan Ltd, 2001, p. 359.) Kavanagh would often stay with Swift and his family at 9 Westbourne Terrace. Regarding their friendship, Antoinette Quinn says, "Swift believed in his genius and indulged him and... the older man... came to lean on Swift as a beloved nephew."(Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography, p: 297) Kavanagh would often stay with Swift and his family at 9 Westbourne Terrace: "In London he generally stayed with the Swifts" (Antoinette Quinn, Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography).
Beckett had an extract from Watt appear in Envoy in 1950. Following his mother's funeral Beckett spent the afternoon with Swift in McDaid's, later to be joined by the rowdy Kavanagh & O'Nolan (Gandon Editions Biography, 1993). Beckett was later to contribute to X Magazine with "L'Image", an extract from an early, variant version of Comment c'est and the first appearance of the novel in any form ("'L’Image', X: A Quarterly Review, Vol. I, No. 1, November 1959. This excerpt from Comment c’est is an early, variant version taken from Part I and is the first appearance of the novel in any form. A corrected carbon of the typescript submitted to the review is included with Typescript II of "Comment c’est" and represents an intermediate stage between the first and second typescripts". —Beckett Exhibition Harry Ransom Centre University of Texas at Austin)
web.archive.org
John Ryan (founder of Envoy) in his introduction to Swift for the Rosc Catalogue 1971 (which included Swift's portrait of Kavanagh): "'He painted the trees and gardens he cherished and the people he loved; because he was, happily, not unduly concerned, a style that came naturally to him shortly became his own distinctive 'style' — his signature — as uniquely his own as the subject content. Swift's peculiar style reminds us of nobody but the artist — a telling point with a painter who has set no store on this aspect of the job. In Swift we have, then, a man with an observation that is both curious and affectionate — for his attention to details in his subject is paternal and not academic" - Rosc Catalogue, Irish Imagination, 1971; see also Adams auctioneers catalogue notesArchived 21 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine; and in Envoy (1951): "No clichés are employed to simplify his task and no tricks are superimposed to foster an illusion of originality. Academicians and abstractionists will equally deplore him, and probably for the same reasons. He has rejected the debased technique of the one and the dogmas of the other. He paints what he sees." — "Patrick Swift", by John Ryan, Envoy: A Review of Literature and Art, July 1951, vol 5/20
"Freud had already shown in London and Paris when he came to Dublin in 1948 [most likely when Swift and Freud first met], partly on a pilgrimage to Jack B Yeats, who had just enjoyed a retrospective at the Tate; and whom Freud declared the greatest living painter… Freud seemed closest to artist Paddy Swift… In September 1951 Kitty Garman wrote to her mother… She mentions Freud working on a painting in Paddy Swift’s Hatch Street studio, Dead Cock’s Head 1951, painted on the same red velvet chair as Swift’s Woodcock 1951." — "Lucian Freud: Prophet of Discomfort", Mic Moroney, Irish Arts ReviewlinkArchived 19 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine; "He had met Freud by 1949... My grasp of chronology is not always accurate, but certainly the acquaintance was well-developed by 1950 when we shared the ground-floor of a house in Hatch Street together. Lucian, who was staying in Ireland, used to come around in the mornings to paint, so that sometimes when I would surface around ten or eleven I would find them both at work in the studio next door." — Anthony Cronin, Patrick Swift 1927-83, 1993 IMMA Retrospective Catalogue. Freud's visits in the fifties coincided with his courtship of Lady Caroline Blackwood. Photographs by Daniel Farson from this period include Freud, Swift and Behan in Dublin in 1952(artprice.com link).
