Alan Davie (1920 – 2014)
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UNTITLED 1988 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P6030 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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IMAGE OF THE FISH GOD 1956 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P351 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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MAGIC VILLA NO. 8 1994 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P6355 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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ZURICH IMPROVISATIONS XXI 1965 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P1382 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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ZURICH IMPROVISATIONS III 1965 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P1381 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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GOLDEN SEAM 1952 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P301 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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DARLING, IT'S NESTING TIME 1961 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P387 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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UNTITLED 1988 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P6022 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
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THE BLOND GOES GAY 1961 Alan Davie (1920 – 2014) P384 © The Artist, Courtesy of the Estate of the artist and Gimpel Fils
Alan Davie was born in Grangemouth in Scotland and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He served in the Royal Artillery from 1940 - 1946. He developed an interest in primitive art after seeing an exhibition of African art at the Berkeley Galleries in London. For a time Davie was a professional jazz musician and turned his hand to making jewellery. From the late 1940s Davie began to develop a strong gestural style based on the radical modernism of America and continental Europe. At the height of his prowess as an abstract expressionist, he questioned the value of ‘self expression’. To be completely free and gestural in style was, he believed, to court sterility. His aim was to sublimate, rather than to promote, the self, to reach down into the subconscious and allow intuition to guide his responses. His images are drawn from a wealth of sources, touching the wellspings of collective thought and feeling that have always bound people, regardless of race, time, sex or country. They range from the patterns on Hopi Indian ceramics, themselves derived from watching birds in flight, to images based on musical instruments, shamanistic ritual, Zen Buddhism, the scent of flowers, the colour of the moon and the spellbinding power of signs and symbols.
Glossary
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Ceramics
Clay based products produced from non-metallic material and fired at high temperature. The term covers all objects made of fired clay, including earthenware, porcelain, stoneware and terra cotta.