Through a window (Positano, Italy), Patrick Swift, 1955, oil on canvas; 79 x 60 cm


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I have started the painting of the palm tree outside the window. I can go straight at it because I have wanted to paint one for so long and have looked longingly into them so often in so many places. - Swift in his notebook (Gandon Editions, 1993)


Oonagh and Patrick stayed in Rome until Easter and then moved on to Positano where they took an apartment. Nigel Heseltine, whom they knew from Dublin where he had taken refuge like so many others during the war, and had run a theatre company with Shelah Richards, had recommended the little town... Once settled, however, Swift found the social round distracted him from work and the hard-drinking and malicious back-biting that went on among the set, not to his taste. Excessive drinking and gossip were nothing new for a Dubliner and Sohoite... However, there were exceptions. Dede and John Farrelly became good friends, as did Helen and Philip Martin - Gandon Editions, 1993

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