1920-1921, oil on canvas, 148.5×160.8cm
Inscription: monogram in grey b.r. :’FB’
Provenance: Kojiro Matsukata; Brangwyn; gift to William Morris Gallery in 1936 (Br O 18).
Exhibited: Queen’s Gate, 1924, cat 3 (lent by Matsukata). Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1936. cat 1006. Royal Academy, 1952, cat 413. 50th Anniversary Exhibition, Walthamstow, 2001. Frank Brangwyn 1867-1956, 2006. Essex Paints London, Guildhall Art Gallery, London, 2008. Tokyo, 2010. WMG, 2017.
Lit and Ill: : Alford & Horner (Eds), Brangwyn in his Studio, Guildford, 2004, p93, 94, front cover.
Literature: Daily Telegraph, R R Tatlock, ‘Mr Brangwyn’s Work’, 9 July 1924. Brangwyn Triumphant, Sketch, 22 October 1952. Duffy, ‘Frank Brangwyn and the curious incidence of art in the Tate’, British Art Journal, Vol 8, p52.
Illustrated: Furst, Decorative Art of Frank Brangwyn, London, 1924, facing p201. Galloway, Oil and Mural Paintings of Sir Frank Brangwyn, Leigh-on-Sea, 1962, plate 22. Horner, ‘Brangwyn and the Japanese Connection’, Decorative Arts Society, Journal 26, 2002, p72. Billie Figg, ‘Essex Club goes to the Guildhall’, The Artist, May 2008, p19
This painting, more like a decorative panel, was supposedly painted in an Arcadian setting, and Furst considers it remarkable in that it is probably the only painting ‘based on the contrast of Nasturtium green and Nasturtium yellow’. Two large swans slightly to left of centre, the front one facing left, the one behind facing the viewer. They stand in a forest like setting with two vertical tree trunks right, and orange and yellow nasturtiums at their feet. The flowers are vibrant and the sunlight dapples the blue-white feathering. The swans are well realised. Although Brangwyn uses huge brush strokes he succeeds in creating a wonderful patterned surface of light and shade.
Alford’s diary informs us that Brangwyn started work on the painting on 13 July 1921, Alford having drawn it in for him the previous year. He sat in the area between the double gates leading to Queen Street and the studio, having first got Yafrate to wash the area down with carbolic disinfectant. The beautiful wild swans one sees were in fact inspired by a single example of the taxidermists art, and the swathes of nasturtiums were merely a handful in a wooden tub. Tatlock describes ‘two great swans passing in the twilight like white ghosts through a fiery tangle of nasturtiums’.