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John Luke RUA (1906 -1975)
Swans & Cygnets (1935)
Tempera, 19 x 26.5cm (7½ x 10½”)
Signed & inscribed verso, exhibition label on reverse
Provenance: From the Collection of George and Maura McClelland and on loan from them to
IMMA from 1999 - 2004; Private Collection Dublin
Exhibited:
John Luke Exhibition
, Arts Council of Ireland 1978, Ulster Museum and Douglas
Hyde Gallery, Cat. No. 26, where lent by George and Maura McClelland; and
A Selection of Works from the McClelland Collection
, IMMA, Sept 2000 - Jan 2001
Literature:
The Hunter Gatherer
, IMMA 2004, illustrated Fig. 135 p.137
John Luke was born in Belfast and after a short period working in the city’s shipyards and textile
industry he entered Belfast School of Art where he won a major scholarship to the Slade School
of Art in London. Here Luke studied under the prestigious Slade teacher Henry Tonks and was
one of the last artists to emerge from an art school system that had produced major painters such
as Paul Nash, Stanley Spencer, Edward Wadsworth and David Bomberg.
Luke completed his Diploma at the Slade in the summer of 1930 and after a brief spell at the
Westminster School of Art he returned to Belfast in 1931. During the early 1930s Luke painted
a number of imaginative landscapes such as this. He often included small details of animals, such
as birds, cats, dogs, horses and even foxes, in his compositions following the example of medieval
and Renaissance art. However, the image of swans would recur in several important works from
this period from the linocut of
Shaw’s Bridge
(c.1933) to the major tempera painting
Locks at
Edenderry
(1944). The cross-hatched brushwork and early use of tempera in this composition
are evidence of Luke’s increasing concern with issues of craftsmanship and technique that would
come to be a defining feature of his subsequent work.
Dr. Joseph McBrinn
Belfast School of Art
University of Ulster
€10,000 - 15,000
