Alan Davie

Alan Davie (1920-2014) 

Painter, born in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, whose father was a painter and printmaker. Studied at Edinburgh College of Art, 1937-40, where he was influenced by John Maxwell. Won several scholarships. After serving in the Army in World War II Davie worked for a time as a professional jazz musician. He was also interested in writing poetry, designed textiles and pottery and worked as a jeweller. By the time of his first solo show, at Grant's Bookshop, Edinburgh, in 1946, Davie's interest in the work of Paul Klee and primitive artists was evident. Over the years there were a number of such influences on his work: the American Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock and Gorky, Oriental mysticism including Zen Buddhism, gliding and swimming and Indian mythology. Davie viewed art as a way of gaining spiritual enlightenment. His later work was less expressionistic, more full of symbolism. In 1947 Davie married the artist and potter Janet Gaul, travelled in Europe and met Peggy Guggenheim, the collector, which expanded his horizons. 

From 1950 he was having solo shows with Gimpel Fils and had his first New York exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York in 1956. Was Gregory Fellow at Leeds University, 1957-9. In 1962 Davie had retrospective at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, which toured, and from then he consolidated his international reputation with a number of overseas retrospectives. Fifty-year retrospective at McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, 1992, also at Barbican Art Gallery, 1993. Jingling Space, at Tate St Ives in 2003-4, highlighted the evolution of Davie's work from the 1930s, particularly relating to his interest in Surrealism. Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, held an exhibition in 2004 in which recent paintings by Davie revealed that his capacity to create rich imagery was not diminished by age. Tate Gallery holds his work. Lived in Hertfordshire, St Lucia and Cornwall.

Text Source: Artists in Britain Since 1945, David Buckman