With Swiggett, it all began with an unimpeachable virtuosity. The man loved to draw and he drew beautifully.

He was also blessed by a long formative period in which he was paid to make a great deal of work. His career from the mid 1930s to the mid 1940s was largely the career of a W.P.A. muralist. During that time, he worked on 30 murals, many of which were enormous. (The largest, the Huntington Post Office mural, was composed of five panels – one of which was 87 feet long and six feet high.) Plus, the work often involved executing designs in difficult media like encaustic, egg tempera, and casein. The difficulties of using these Old World media may have given Swiggett a kind of reverence for technique in an of itself.

Whatever the cause, Swiggett’s earliest efforts as an easel painter were marked by a very high technical proficiency.

His fantastically detailed easel paintings of the 30s and 40s were part of the nascent Magical Realist movement – a school which hadn’t coalesced and wasn’t named until much later. Partly a response to international Surrealism (especially Italian metaphysical painters like Giorgio di Chirico) and partly a response to the German “New Objectivity” (Neue Sachlichkeit) painters like George Grosz, Magical Realism marked a return to representational - and often highly rendered - paintings that offered absurd, theatrical, or fantastic visual images to comment on real-life issues. It was this focus on external realities that separated it from Surrealism.

Throughout this time, Swiggett also experimented widely with other pictorial ideas. His enormous technical gifts enabled him to make important examples in a variety of other styles that were, in a general sense, Modernist. Arrangements with Apples, 1939 and Apples & Succulents, 1963 showed Cézanne’s influence. Felicia, 1941 showed an admiration for Picasso’s classical period. Little Princess - the Queen, 1951 showed an understanding of Max Beckman’s work, or even medieval stained glass. In each of these explorations, however, Swiggett was still Swiggett. A pronounced interest in wrinkled paper and folded cloth reappears time and again. With these additions, the artist was able to show off his great rendering ability. He also showed an ongoing interest in theatrical staging - both in still life and in his figurative compositions.

In the 60s and 70s, Swiggett made a pronounced move towards the figure, working again in a new kind of magical realist style. Filling his compositions with whimsy, art historical reference, and somewhat obtuse metaphorical iconography, he developed a distinctive new voice. The sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s certainly may have even figured into his new body of work. Many of the figures are nudes in situations in which you might expect them to be clothed. On a trip to Europe, Swiggett decided that the male nude was inadequately represented in Western art and he decided to correct that. He didn't favor one gender over another, but his willingness to render the nude male is striking.

His return to a highly-rendered representational art was part of a larger, though still largely undiscussed, trend in American art. Photorealism, by artists like Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings, and Chuck Close, came on the scene. There were also artists like Vija Celmins and Paul Wonner who worked to organize abstract compositions with representational elements. Perhaps Swiggett’s closest colleague was Philip Pearlstein, whose realist nude figure paintings won critical and commercial favor in the late 60s and 70s. Nevertheless, Swiggett's works of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was certainly allied with the projects of these other artists.

AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS

San Francisco Art Association
Laguna Beach Art Association (Board of Directors)
San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild (President, 1953)
La Jolla Art Association
San Diego Watercolor Society
Western Foundation in Art
Art Council, San Diego State Universit

1935  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA - First Award
1937  Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, CA - Printmaking
1938  California State Fair, Sacramento, CA - 2nd Prize-Figure Painting for "Boy At the Beach"
1950-54  San Diego Museum of Art Artists' Guild
1950  Annual Hoosier Salon, Indianapolis, IN - Purchase Prize for "Arrangement with Lemons"
1950  Arizona State Fair, Phoenix, AZ - Second Prize, Oil Painting for "San Miguel"
1950  Annual Carlsbad-Oceanside Art Exhibit - Purchase Prize
1951  California State Fair, Pomona, CA - 1st Prize, Lithograph for "Melon Vendor"
1975  22nd Annual Exhibition of the San Diego Art Insititute, San Diego, CA - First Award for Painting
1990  San Diego Museum of Art, Artist's Guild, Juried Exhibition, San Diego, CA - First Award for "Memory of Mary-1942"

COLLECTIONS

City of San Diego, San Diego, CA, "Egyptian Head with Canna Leaf", 1945
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection, Miami, FL
San Diego Historical Society, San Diego, CA
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
Smithsonian, Washington, DC
Southwestern College, Chula Vista, CA
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

MURAL COMMISIONS

1935-37 Huntington Park Post Office, oil on canvas (5 panels, one 8' wide x 6' high), US Treasury, Assistant to Norman Chamberlain.
1935 Mural, California Wine Institute, oil on canvas.
1937 California School of Design, Two Murals, Today the Design School is known as Cal Tech. Assisted by Ivan Bartlett
1937 Redondo Beach Post Office, oil on canvas (3 panels), US Treasury. Assistant to Paul Sample
1937 Lebec Hotel, commissioned by owner Thomas O'Brian. Assisted by Ivan Bartlett
1937-39 Long Beach Polytechnic High School, egg tempera on gessoed plaster, (17’ x 35').
1938-39 Mural Designer, W.P.A., Los Angeles.
1938-39 Seven Murals, Peace Projects, Inc., Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, lacquer on glass.
1939 Mural, University of Southern California, "Alma Mater" encaustic on concrete (10’ x 12’).
1939 "Children & Natural Resources", South Pasadena High School, "Alma Mater" petrochrome.
1939 Mural, Private Home, Pasadena, casein.
c. 1940 "Food Culture, Clothing Culture", Fallbrook High School, "Alma Mater" casein.
1940 Winner, National Mural Competition, Franklin, Indiana Post Office, oil on canvas, US Treasury.
1940 Winner, National Mural Competition, SS PRESIDENT JACKSON, casein tempera on Flexwood, American President Lines.
1941 Winner, National Mural Competition, SS PRESIDENT ADAMS, casein tempera on Flexwood, American President Lines.
1941 Three-dimensional chart-mural, “Housing Exhibit,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, casein.
1941 Winner, National Mural Competition, Safford, Arizona Post Office, US Treasury (Stopped because of the War.)
1941 Winner, National Mural Competition, US Maritime Commission & Moore-McCormick Lines (Stopped because of the War.)
c. 1941 "Life of Washington Irving", Washington Irving Jr. High School, "Alma Mater" petrachrome.
1945-46 Radar War Room, US Army Air Base, Victorville, constructed murals with radar-scope photographs with casein.
1946 Mural, Foodmaker, Coronado, casein.
1953 Children’s Ward, San Diego County Hospital, casein.
1954 Four Three-dimensional Murals, Ridpath Hotel, Spokane, enamel on metal and wood.
Date Unknown San Diego Skyline Mural, home of Mr. & Mrs. Fred Rohr of Rohr Aircraft

CHRONOLOGY 

1910  Born January 6 in Franklin, IN
1912  Moves to Long Beach, CA
1928  Graduates from Long Beach Polytechnic High School
1930  Graduates from Long Beach Junior College
1931  Attends Chouinard Art Institute
1934  Receives B.A. in Mathematics and Art from San Diego State College (now San Diego State University)
1934  Begins work with Federal Art Project (F.A.P.), Los Angeles
1934  Transfers to U.S. Treasury Art Project (T.A.P.)
1935  Paints first oil painting and enters first competitive art competition
1939  Receives Master of Fine Arts Degree from USC (University of Southern California)
1940-41 Teaches at USC
1941  Travels in Mexico
1941-42  Teaches at Washington State College, Pullman, WA (later Washington State University)
1942  Marries Mary Wurst
1942-46  Serves in the U.S. Air Force in Victorville as Head of Radar Intelligence & Santa Ana Army Base, teaching mathematics and navigation
1944  His daughter, Stephanie, is born
1946  Begins teaching at San Diego State College (later San Diego State University)
1950 Travels in Mexico
1950-2  Attends Claremont Graduate School during summer months
1963 Travels around the world for nine months
1963-9  Serves as Chair, Department of Art, SDSU
1969-70 Takes a year sabbatical to Europe where he encounters a deficit of male nudes in the art museums
1977  Retires from SDSU
1977  Professor Emeritus SDSU 1977-1990
1981-1987 Travels widely through China, Scandinavia, U.S.S.R., England, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest
1990 Died December 9 in San Diego, CA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Breedlove, J. Pat, and Cindy Breedlove. Artists of Southern California: The Fine Art Catalogue. Albuquerque, NM: Mountain Productions of Texas, 1989. Print.
2. Dijkstra, Bram. Masterpieces of San Diego Painting: Fifty Works from Fifty Years, 1900-1950. Oceanside, CA: Oceanside Museum of Art, 2007. Print.
3. Jennings. Art of California. N.p.: n.p., 1990. Print.
4. Kamerling, Bruce. 100 Years of Art in San Diego: Selections from the Collection of the San Diego Historical Society. San Diego, CA: San Diego Historical Society, 1991. Print.
5. Krantz, Les. The California Art Review: An Illustrated Survey of the State's Museums, Galleries, and Leading Artists. Chicago, IL: American References, 1989. Print.
6. Kultermann, Udo. The New Painting. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1977. Print.
7. Park, Marlene, and Gerald E. Markowitz. Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1984. Print.
8. Perine, Robert. Chouinard, an Art Vision Betrayed: The Story of the Chouinard Art Institute, 1921-1972. Encinitas, CA: Artra Pub., 1985. Print.
9. Perine, Robert, I. Andrea, and Bram Dijkstra. San Diego Artists. Encinitas, CA: Artra Pub., 1988. Print.
10. Southern California Creates. S.l.: Southern California Art Project, 1939. Print.