Patrick Swift & Patrick Kavanagh, Grand Canal, Dublin, 1951; still from a film by John Ryan



Anthony Cronin and Patrick Swift, 1951; still from a film by John Ryan


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I remember him setting up an enormous canvas in the garden of Hatch Street in Dublin where his studio then was, and, without further ado, painting a portrait of a girl without any preliminary sketches or without squaring off the canvas, without any preliminary work whatever... I had at the time a 16mm movie camera, and panning the camera from the painting to the subject, to and fro, captured the scene on film. I used to show this film to the two Paddies (Swift and Kavanagh) and they could never get enough.
I made a number of these colour films including one of Kavanagh and Swift and Cronin ambling along on a summer's day by the banks of Dublin's Grand Canal.
- John Ryan, Gandon Editions, 1993

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Patrick Kavanagh's wedding; there is a painting by Swift hanging on the wall behind Kavanagh