JOHN
SWAN
(1948
- )
The
competition that artist John Swan seeks out doesn’t require
a panel of judges. Although he has won prestigious prizes
such as the Ducks Unlimited International Artist of the Year
award in 1987 and the Atlantic Salmon Federation Artist of
the Year three times, Swan has entered his work in few
judged exhibitions. He prefers contests on streams or sea
as an avid fly fisherman. He then paints his experience with
the passion of a true sportsman.
One of America’s prominent sporting and wildlife artists,
Swan is equally adept in watercolor and oils. His paintings
bring to life fishing and hunting trips to places as far
afield as the bonefishing mecca of The Bahamas and Canada’s
Gaspe Peninsula, also a favorite sporting haunt of renowned
impressionist Frank W. Benson (1862-1951). “I paint
wherever I can fish,” he admits. The result is
spectacularly immediate works set in the world’s premier
sporting destinations.
Based on firsthand experience, and often created en plein
air, Swan’s paintings are imbued with freshness: the energy
of a tarpon struggling against the line or the quietude of a
hunter’s early dawn preparations.
Even while singularly expressive, his style is reminiscent
of some of America’s most beloved past masters. In the
tradition of Benson, John Whorf and Winslow Homer, each of
whom painted sporting scenes between the 1880s and 1940s,
Swan’s close observations of nature are executed with fluid
brushwork and a palette of highly contrasting lights and
darks. Like Homer, he employs a full spectrum of blues
representing reflected and refracted light on horizontal
planes.
Although much of his work is made on location, Swan is often
at work in his hometown of Portland, Maine. His home and
barn-studio are tucked away in a section of the city that he
describes as a “colonial village at the edge of the sea.”
Situated on a tidal river dense with lily pads or ice chunks
each season, his shingled home was once owned by
impressionist Walter Griffin (1861-1935). He bought the
property in 1995 and filled it with Griffin’s work.
Amazingly, Swan’s own ancestors lived in the house over two
hundred years ago.
After studying art at the University of New Hampshire, Swan
began his career painting his two sons and rural Down East
landscapes. About twenty years ago, one of his fly fishing
scenes landed on the cover of Gray’s Sporting Journal,
catapulting him to national recognition as a sporting
artist. Since then, Swan’s work has appeared regularly in
publications such as Esquire Sportsman and
Wildlife Art. He has also illustrated numerous books
including Joseph Bate’s classic Atlantic Salmon Fishing
and Thomas McGuane’s anthology Live Water.
