the stations of the cross | intaglio prints by dick swift

On view in the Works on Paper Gallery, Second Floor

This intimate exhibition, “The Stations of the Cross | Intaglio Prints by Dick Swift”, explores this powerful suite of fourteen intaglio prints created in 1957-58, which Father Joseph Haller of Georgetown University described as a profoundly modern retelling of a timeless narrative.

Employing a rich range of printmaking techniques—etching, dry-point, soft ground, and aquatint—Swift achieves striking tonal and textural depth, using methods such as pressed textiles to evoke cloth, vegetation, and patterned space.

Swift explores the Passion, which in Christian tradition refers to the suffering, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, beginning with his arrest after the Last Supper and culminating in his death on the cross. The term comes from the Latin passio, meaning “to suffer”. It encompasses key events such as the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, betrayal by Judas, interrogation before Pilate, scourging, carrying of the cross, and crucifixion itself. The Passion is central in Christian theology as it represents Christ’s sacrifice and is commemorated specially during Holy Week, culminating on Good Friday.

Across the series, Swift situates the Passion within a distinctly 20th-century landscape marked by war, injustice, and urban life: high-rise buildings, contemporary dress, and unsetting modern details collapse sacred history into lived experience.

Swift’s imagery is further charged by recurring figures of violence and evil, including a horned embodiment of inhumanity that reappears throughout the sequence, and the chilling introduction of a uniformed, swastika-bearing soldier who personifies mechanized death. By the final scenes, references expand to include prisoners behind barbed wire and even Picasso’s bull from Guernica, underscoring the universality of suffering and the persistence of brutality. Through both technique and iconography, Swift transforms the Stations into a visceral meditation on human cruelty and endurance in the modern age.

Image Above: Dick Swift, American, 1918–2010, Station 1, Judgement of Pilate, Fourteen Stations of the Cross Portfolio, Edition 11/35, Ink, Antique-White Wove Paper, 1957–1958, Purchase, Friends of Art. 1963.11119a