Alan Davie

Galleria La Medusa, Rome
Sale, Bolaffi di Arte Moderna, Turin, 1966, lot 5
Private Collection, Rome, from whom acquired by the present owner

Florence, Palazzo Strozzi, Mostra Mercato Nazionale d’Arte Contemporanea, 21st March - 19th April 1964, cat. no.8, illustrated p.112.

Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1967, cat. no.410, illustrated p.149;
'La Pittura Mistica di Alan Davie', Paese Sera, 14th February 1963, illustrated p.3;
Nostro Tempo. Cultura, Arte, Vita, Naples, February 1963, illustrated p.12;
Catalogo Bolaffi di Arte Moderna, Turin, 1966, cat. no.5, p.98, illustrated p.99;
La Rivista dell’Arredamento. Interni, November 1977, illustrated pp.28-29;
Milano Casa Oggi, Milan, 1978, illustrated, pp.46, 48;
Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1992, cat. no.474, p.175.

Original canvas. The canvas appears sound but undulates very slightly towards the four corners. There are several fine lines of paint cracking scattered across the work, predominately in the lower right quadrant, with some tiny flecks of paint loss visible on extremely close examination. There are some small areas of reticulation to the thicker areas of impasto. There are some light surface scuffs towards the bottom of the composition and there is also evidence of surface dirt and studio detritus across the piece. With the exception of the above the work appears to be in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals no obvious signs of florescence or retouching. The work is presented unglazed in a simple painted baton frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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‘When I am working, I am aware of a striving, a yearning, the making of many impossible attempts at a kind of transmutation – a searching for a formula for the magical conjuring of the unknowable.’ Alan Davie, ‘Notes by the Artist’, published in the exhibition catalogue for his retrospective at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, June 1958.

As with many of his major works, the title of Mystic Table displays Davie’s keen interest in magic and primitive spiritualism. Viewing the role of artist as one of magician, he wrote in 1960 that: ‘magic is the outcome of art and only later did the artist take up the position of maker of objects for magical rites, the natural outcome of this recognition’ (Alan Davie, ‘Towards a New Definition of Art, Some Notes on (NOW) Painting’, reproduced in the exhibition catalogue for Alan Davie, Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zurich, April-May 1960). In his early work Davie had accessed a higher level of consciousness through spontaneous or automatic painting, but by the 1960s, as in this painting, he referred to this higher state by including emblems and signs associated with Zen Buddhism and magic.

The complex layering of the visual elements of the work present an almost bewildering scene, painted with Davie’s characteristic exuberance. The viewer seems to be positioned on the threshold of a temple-like space, framed by vertical stripes of colour, beneath a fringe of coloured streamers. Fizzing with energy, a jumble of forms emerge from whirling brushstrokes, painted with such abandon that some even escape the table and fly out across the edges of the work. Atop this laden table stand what appear to be votive objects, both suggestive of the familiar – totemic-like masks, crosses and sculptures – but which also resist clear definition.

A layer of semi-opaque creamy-yellow further obscures the top of the work, evocative perhaps of smoke or incense, adding to the ritualistic atmosphere. Other works of the time, such as Entrance for a Red Temple No.1, 1960 (Tate, London) depict a similar quasi-religious setting, and if one were to step inside Davie’s dreamlike spaces of this time, Mystic Table provides a fitting interior as a sequel to this earlier work.   

The importance of colour was central to Davie’s work. Writing in ‘Notes on Colour’ in 1991, he commented: ‘the mysterious element of colour, perhaps the most important element in my painting (and indeed my life), is something utterly magical to me’ (reproduced in Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1992, p.66). Mystic Table positively glows with rich jewel-like tones, and shows Davie revelling in a glorious palette of riotous colour.