Collections

   

Davie, Alan, CBE RA HRSA

1920 – 2014

Davie, painter, graphic artist, poet, musician, silversmith, and jeweller, was born at Grangemouth, near Stirling, the son of an artist. Davie studied at Edinburgh College of Art (1937–40) and after serving in the Royal Artillery, 1941–6, had his first one-man show at Grant's Bookshop, Edinburgh, in 1946. After working as a professional jazz musician he travelled in Europe (1947-48). A critical experience from this travel was his seeing works by Jackson Pollock and other American painters in Peggy Guggenheim's gallery in Venice. He was one of the first British painters to be affected by Abstract Expressionism, and Guggenheim became an early patron. Other influences on his eclectic but extremely personal style are African sculpture and Zen Buddhism. His work is full of images suggestive of magic or mythology. Some of these are based on ancient forms and some are of his own invention. Others make reference to African sculpture, native American pottery and Aboriginal art. He used these as themes around which he developed variations in exuberant colour and brushwork emulating his jazz practice. Davie returned to Britain in 1949, settling in London, where he worked until 1953 as a jeweller. By the mid-1950s, he was gaining a considerable reputation as a painter and this became International in the 1960s. From 1971 he spent much of his time on the island of St Lucia. His many awards included the prize for the best foreign painter at the São Paulo *Bienal of 1963 and first prize at the International Graphics Exhibition, Cracow, in 1966. Retrospectives were held at the Barbican Art Gallery, London (1993), and Tate St Ives (2003). Davie was elected an HRSA in 1977.



An image from the RSA collection.