The paintings are listed together because they both depict the same mountain range and the general treatment appears similar.

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WHERE SHATTERED MOUNTAINS LIE

Image: composited from www.artnet.com and Royal Academy Illustrated, 1930.

Sometimes misnamed ‘Where Sheltered Mountains Lie,’ but ‘shattered’ is the word used by the Royal Academy, 1930, and in the 1934 studio sale catalogue.

• Media: oil on canvas.
• Dimensions: different sources give different sizes, 1270 x 660 mm (0.84 m²), 1256 x 648 mm (0.81 m²) and 1245 x 635 mm (49 x 25 in, 0.79 m²), the width/height proportions being the same (less than 1:50 difference), and the average dimensions being 1257 x 648 mm (0.81 m²).
• History: 1920-1930; signed and dated 1930 according to auction aggregate sites, but relationship to The Soul’s Journey, which is dated to 1925 or earlier, makes a compositional date of the earlier 1920s possible; exhibited Royal Academy, 1930; exhibited Aberdeen Art Gallery, 1931; auctioned Christie’s, London, 9 Feb 1934, “The artist’s studio sale; Christie’s, 9 February 1934, lot 66 “Title verso,” sold; auctioned Phillip’s, London, 6 Mar 1991, “Title / verso,” sold; auctioned 14 Jun 1991; auctioned 3 Jun 1994; auctioned 11 Aug 1994; auctioned Christie’s, London, 20 Oct 1994, “inscribed and dated ‘Mrs A.L. Swynnerton ARA Where sheltered Mountains Lie/1930,” sold.
• Location: unknown.

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STUDY FOR THE SOUL’S JOURNEY

This work is usually referred to as simply ‘The Soul’s Journey,’ but it appears from photographs to be the work called ‘Study for The Soul’s Journey’ exhibited in Manchester, 1923, so that is the title used on this web site.

• Media: oil on canvas.
• Dimensions: 1600 x 991 mm (1.60 m²), Christie’s 6 Feb 1948; 1613 x 1003 mm (1.62 m²); average 1607 x 997 mm 1.60 m²).
• History: exhibited 1923, Manchester Art Gallery (visible in exhibition photo); The Art News (Journal), 12 Apr 1924, “Mrs. Swynnerton … sends [to the Royal Academy], I hear, an allegorical picture of the “Soul’s Journey,” typified by a figure ascending from earth to its spiritual home“; exhibited Royal Academy, 1925 (The Guardian, London, 2 May 1925); “Exhibited at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.A.; Exhibited Manchester 1932” (posthumous studio sale catalogue, typographical error for 1923?); auctioned Christie’s, 9 Feb 1934; auctioned Christie’s, London, 6 Feb 1948, sold to ‘Woodley’; given to Glasgow Museums by Francis Howard, 1952; also known as “The Soul’s Awakening.”
• Location: Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.

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The fact that the mountains in the two paintings form a continuum, suggests that they were painted during the same period in the early 1920s

Combining the images suggests that the figure in Study for The Soul’s Journey could have originally have been more central and the canvas to have been truncated, or that Where Shattered Mountains Lie may similarly have once been a larger work.

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Thanks to Grant Waters for information on the auction history of  ‘Study for The Soul’s Journey’ and other research.

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