Douglas Swan
1930 - 2000
Untitled 63
Oil on Canvas
70.5 x 80 cm
Dido
Oil on Canvas
102 x 89 cm
Untitled
Oil on Canvas
76.2 x 66 cm
Cage 2
Oil on Canvas
93 x 114.2 cm
Douglas Swan (1930 - 2000) was born in Connecticut, USA of Scottish parents, moving to Carnoustie, Scotland in 1936. After National Service and studying at Dundee Art College he began exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy. Awarded the RSA scholarship in London in 1954 he met and formed a lasting friendship with the artist William Scott. They painted together in Somerset and Cornwall and Swan exhibited at Gimpel Fils in London in 1957. Swan, together with other St Ives artists Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Anthony Benjamin and Trevor Bell, was awarded a British Council Scholarship to study in Italy in 1958.
In the late 1960s Swan moved with his wife to live Switzerland, and then to Germany in the mid 1970s, becoming an important and established abstract painter. Throughout his life he would return to his parental home at Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland to paint. He died in Germany in 2000.
During his career, Swan showed with the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Young Contemporaries, The London Group, Artists International Association (AIA), The Scottish Gallery and with notable London galleries including Gimpel Fils, Piccadilly Gallery, and Waddington Gallery.
From 1957 he exhibited widely with solo shows in Italy, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland. Solo exhibitions in the UK include Stone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne (1959 & 1964) and Bradford City Art Gallery (1960), and a touring exhibition organised by Artsite Gallery, Bath in 1986.