A New Book Recaps the Long Career of Vermont Painter Fred Swan 

click to enlarge

• Courtesy
• The Art of Fred Swan, Champlain Collection, 96 pages. $69.95.

Barre artist Fred Swan's paintings of the New England countryside often evoke a common reaction: "Oh, I know where that is!"

Swan has painted real landmarks, such as the Stowe Community Church and Saint Anne's Shrine in Isle La Motte. But most of the time, viewers are mistaken: Much of the idyllic scenery Swan paints lives only in his imagination: a winter wonderland with snow blanketing neighborhood roofs; an apple tree in front of a bright red pickup truck.

"By the time I'm done with [a painting], it doesn't look anything like the photograph or the sketch that I originally started out with," Swan told Seven Days.

A new coffee table book offers insights on his artistic process. Published by St. Albans' Champlain Collection, The Art of Fred Swan is a 96-page retrospective of the 80-year-old artist's career. It includes a brief history of Swan, who continues to work in his basement studio, testimonials from his collectors and images of his paintings from the 1970s to today.

Since Swan's first art show, in 1972, his work has been displayed at galleries across Vermont. In 1979, Swan achieved national recognition when he won the cover contest of the Saturday Evening Post, a magazine famously illustrated by Norman Rockwell. Swan's work has also been featured in the private collections of pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson and entrepreneur Malcolm Forbes.

click to enlarge

• Images Courtesy Of The Champlain Collection
• Fred Swan

Some locals know Swan for a different reason: He was their high school math teacher. Swan taught at Lamoille Union High School in Hyde Park from 1970 to 1974 and Spaulding High School in Barre starting in 1975. He retired in 2001 to focus on painting.

Swan said he had a passion for art from a young age. Growing up in Deep River, Conn., he was frequently immersed in a creative project. He recalled haphazardly splashing paint onto a canvas with his sister and her friend, who happened to be the niece of abstract painter Jackson Pollock.

"We thought we were painting like Jackson Pollock," Swan said, laughing.

Swan also liked to make sculptures. He once fashioned a wastepaper basket out of toothpaste caps, and he made miniature Greek temples out of clay.

Swan thinks of his acrylic paintings of Vermont as "miniature," explaining, "Everything is so small-scale here. Small population, a small capital building, even our valleys and our mountains are kind of small."

Details are the lifeblood of Swan's paintings, which can take 500 hours to complete. He meticulously renders each blade of grass, leaf and petal with a rigger brush just a few millimeters wide. Close observers of his landscapes will often find a tiny cat.

Other subtle suggestions of life might take the form of a snowman, a ladder leaning against a tree, a newly mowed field. "I'm interested in the appearance of the interaction of people with the landscape, but the people are not there," Swan said.

Rural landscapes might appear desolate, but many of Swan's winter scenes evoke the setting of a feel-good Christmas movie. This cheerful aesthetic sells. Daniel Pattullo, owner of Village Frame Shoppe in St. Albans, said Swan's work is consistently the top product at his store.

"The old barns, the old houses, they bring back memories from times past here in Vermont," Pattullo said. "He captures the essence of New England in his paintings."

Others might find Swan's themes sentimental, but the artist isn't interested in overanalyzing his work. He just does what he loves, he said, and acclaim seems to follow.

"Vermont is so beautiful," Swan said. "How could you not paint it?"