Alan Davie

Gimpel Fils, London, where acquired by the present owner, 8th November 2007

Alan Bowness (ed.), Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1967, cat. no.344, unpaginated;
Douglas Hall, Michael Tucker et. al., Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1992, cat. no.404, p.174.

Original canvas. There are some small traces of craquelure visible to the centre of the right hand side, in line with the central stretcher bar. There are traces of surface dirt and studio detritus, including some staining to the bottom left quadrant. This excepting the work appears in excellent overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals some minor traces of scattered fluorescence and light flecks of probable retouching, in line with some old frame abrasions visible to the extreme edges. These have all been very sensitively executed. There are further areas of fluorescence which appear in keeping with the nature of the artist's materials and does not suggest retouching. Housed in a simple, light wooden frame. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
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‘The work of Art seems to be something thrown off – a by-product of the process of being and working. Art just happens, like falling in love.’

(The Artist, from Alan Davie, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, (exh. cat.), June 1958, quoted in Alan Bowness (ed.), Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1967, un-paginated.)

 

By 1960 Alan Davie was recognised as one of the leading contemporary British artists of the day. He had shown works across the globe, including in Mexico City, Japan, Paris, Milan, New Zealand, Buenos Aires and even Iraq (as part of a touring British Council exhibition), and found a particularly receptive audience in the United States, having held his first solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York in 1956. Together with contemporaries such as William Scott, Patrick Heron and Peter Lanyon he was seen as a leading voice in the international abstract movement. Yet Davie, more so than many of his peers, refused to be saddled with an artistic label, and instead trod his own, very distinct artistic path.

Whilst fully aware of a number of major international artists and movements, Davie was an adept alto saxophonist and music, jazz in particular, was also to remain a lasting influence throughout the course of his life. Just as a jazz musician composes and riffs his music, so too did Davie explore with the potentials of an artistic ‘free hand’, creating densely worked compositions that are alive with an incredible sense of energy and movement, captured brilliantly in the present work. Here the colours and forms rise or crescendo, with loud, crashing diagonal brushstrokes that dominate the composition. The colours fuse together with a busy, strong central belt that pulls the viewer in. There is a rich jubilation to the present composition, with bright and bold, yet harmonious colours playing together in perfect harmony, much like an orchestra. As Michael Horovitz noted in his slender 1963 publication on the artist ‘some of his most highly worked paintings are the upshot of his dissatisfaction with any one implication – like John Coltrane on his marathon sax solos, he sets out to embellish every possibility the theme can hold’ (Michael Horovitz, Alan Davie, Methuen, London, 1963, unpaginated). He captures an energy and engagement with free-flowing gestures in which the marks can be seen as the pictorial equivalent of sound, echoing the rhythms and melodies of the very music that he so often immersed himself in when he was painting. As Alan Bowness writes: ‘they are not pictures of anything, but experience itself, caught in terms of paint’ (op. cit., unpaginated).