Missing image

© copyright The Artist

UNTITLED 1988

Alan Davie (1920 – 2014)

Details

Dimension
42.5 X 34.5 CM
Media
LITHOGRAPH
Accession number
P6020

Summary

These are the first prints Davie had made since the early 1970s. The artist made hundreds of brush drawings and from these selected 18 to be used as prototypes for the portfolio. The drawings served only as a guide for the work drawn by Davie onto transfer papers, these were in turn transposed onto zinc lithographic plates. The imagery in the portfolio was inspired by ancient symbols such as spirals, ankhs and crosses and drawn from many cultural sources – Aboriginal, Carib and American Indian amongst others, with phrases in Spanish and French placed alongside the images. Together the words and images work in a suggestive way, inviting connections to be made without giving specific meanings and seeming like a book of spells or incantations.

Magic Readerwas published in 1988 by Charles Booth-Clibborn under his imprint The Paragon Press and printed by Ian Lawson, Arthur Watson and Simon King in an edition of 50.

Further reading:
Contemporary Art in Print, Scottish National Gallery of Modern and The Paragon Press, 1995, texts by Jeremy Lewison, Duncan Macmillan and Patrick Elliott