ALAN DAVIE RA - portlandgallery.com

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ALAN DAVIE RA7 – 2 2 O C T O B E R 2 0 2 1

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Front & back cover: Music Man’s Dream Oil on canvas 68 x 84 ins Catalogue No. 18

54

Alan Davie is one of the United Kingdom’s greatest painters, the creator

of works of incredible energy, mystery and originality. He died in 2014

having been the first British artist to develop such an expressive form

of abstraction and drew the keen attention of Rothko and Pollock.

Working quickly and often on the floor, in a similar vein to Pollock, he

created works of immense strength, many of which of which are now

in major museums or in prestigious collections such as that of Damien

Hirst. Davie was represented by Gimpel Fils, one of the top galleries

of his day, and we look forward to a major retrospective of his works.

In 1920, Davie was born in Grangemouth, an oil-refining town to the

west of Edinburgh. In October 1938, he entered Edinburgh College

of Art. Davie’s work was highly regarded – he won the Andrew

Grant travelling scholarship in June 1941 – but he found the school’s

formal discipline difficult to settle into, and he would often slip out of

drawing and painting classes to head into the Pottery and Jewellery

departments instead.

Engaging with poetry, jazz and the art of ancient cultures, Davie

developed a unique form of expression. Abandoning traditional

methods of composition and subject matter, he sought to free his art

from premeditated decision making. Much has been written about

the link between Davie’s work and music, and it would be difficult for

its significance to be understated. Music was present in his childhood

consciousness because there were professional musicians on both sides

of his family, and in the late 1940s Davie joined the Tommy Sampson

Big Band as a professional saxophonist. He mastered a number of

instruments and switched freely between them, enjoying the liberation

from linear time and losing himself through improvisation.

Davie likened his artistic approach to music and there is obviously a

clear relationship between his art and his work as a jazz musician: “It’s

never the case in my work of having an idea first and then putting

it on paper. The idea comes out of working. I do a whole series of

drawings on an idea which has presented itself. I might do about

twenty variations using that idea and developing it. It is very much like

improvising on a piano – sitting down and playing, an idea will appear

out of putting one note against another, which leads to other notes

and, before you know here you are, a melodic line has appeared, and

a harmonic structure presents itself”.

Davie spent the war years in the Royal Artillery. He did not find the

army conducive to painting and instead was more interested in writing

and poetry, discovering the work of T.S. Eliot and Walt Whitman.

Compelled like Whitman to capture his emotions first-hand, Davie’s

immersion with words would ultimately feed into the process and

creative energy of his images.

Davie’s paintings of the 1950s often display an almost manic

calligraphy. In Game for Girls (cat. no.11) we see words emerge,

alongside squiggles and scribbles – jumbly in places - across the

surface. As well as showing his interest in poetry, Davie’s use of short

phrases has been linked to Miro’s word paintings of the 1920s, while

the longer texts relate to Davie’s interest in medieval manuscripts with

their combination of image and text woven together.

In April 1948, Davie embarked on a ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe, with his

wife Bili. They started in Paris, and after having hitchhiked through

France and Switzerland, arrived in Venice in June – just in time for

the Biennale, the first since the war. Davie spent several days viewing

the vast exhibition – ‘there were huge exhibitions of Picasso and

Paul Klee’, he recalled, and the Greek pavilion had been given over

to Peggy Guggenheim’s collection of Surrealist and contemporary

American art.

Davie was also greatly excited by the early Renaissance art and drawn

ALAN DAVIE RA

8. Flag Dream No.3

Signed, titled and dated (on the reverse)

Oil on board

Painted in June 1957.

48 x 60 inches

Provenance: Gimpel Fils Gallery, London

Fairweather Hardin Gallery, Chicago

Private Collection

Exhibited: New York, Catherine Viviano Gallery, Alan Davie, 5 - 23 November 1957, cat.no.12

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1967, cat. no.178

Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, cat. no.225

76

to the mysterious, other worldly qualities of the Byzantine mosaics

he saw on the Italian trip - in Sicily, Rome and elsewhere. The vast,

dark naves of the great Romanesque churches find an echo in the

artists paintings of the late 1940s and early 1950s – works such as Old

Man’s Dream (cat. no. 1), Upsurge No.3 (cat.no.2) and Upsurge No.1

(Speed Space) (cat.no.3) – in the first, Davie’s colours emerging from

darkness are reminiscent of glittering ancient mosaics. In the latter

two, we see his unrivalled energy as he slashes the canvas with brush

strokes which create their own visual fireworks, like flint against flint,

creating their own sparks and evoking the energy of the night. These

are revolutionary works of their time and a testament to Davie’s power

and imagination. Still in Italy in December 1948, Davie had a show at

the Galleria Sandri in Venice. Peggy Guggenheim saw it by chance,

and bought a painting- Music of the Autumn Landscape. An ensuing

friendship allowed him access to her extensive Surrealist collection,

including Miró and Klee, as well as the New York School artists. It also

launched Davie’s professional career- back in London he was taken on

by the leading gallery Gimpel Fils, at Guggenheim’s recommendation.

By the mid-1950s, Davie’s work was receiving well deserved

recognition, particularly abroad. In 1956 he held a one-man show

at the Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York which sold out to great

critical acclaim, with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the

Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo both buying works. Davie started

to become interested in both Zen Buddhism and Jungian psychology

and found the emphasis on releasing the subconscious from the

strictures of the everyday very appealing. At the time Davie was

teaching, and he encouraged his students to allow their art to grow

in an unforced and relaxed way that released the creative process.

Davie’s painting as a result exhibits a multitudinous variety of imagery

and physical mark-making. Davie also mixed his own paints – partly

because the colours had a greater intensity. He mixed the pigments

with an unusually large proportion of oil medium, making the paint

liquid and easy to manipulate quickly. The paint is brushed, scraped,

splashed and dragged across the canvas to create works which seem

to suggest so much yet leave the viewer with a sense that further

discoveries are still to be made.

Black Column for a Mathematician, Entry of The White Diamond and

Bull God 5 are rare in being major works of the mid-1950s outside

prominent collections. In Black Column for a Mathematician mysterious

forms swirl across the canvas with a tangible sense of movement like

a smoke-filled room, forms which are possibly human while darker

circular forms peer out as if from pre-history, all within a static

framework of the black column with numbers of uncertain meaning.

Entry of the White Diamond is a superficially calmer and more considered

work, continuing his earlier grid-like structuring, but with squares and

rectangles filled with spiralling forms spilling out from the dark into

light. Bull God 5 is a spectacular creation of Davie’s imagination with

a formidable presence, structure and colouration. These are restless,

living works the equal of Bacon and Sutherland whose own grid-like

structures and strange figures fascinate us too.

It didn’t take long for this success to be matched at home and in 1958

the Tate Gallery bought their first Davie painting, Birth of Venus. A

major retrospective took place in Britain in the same year. It was shown

at four venues including Whitechapel and Wakefield Art Gallery, where

it was seen by David Hockney, a recent graduate of Bradford College

of Art. He and Davie exchanged words at an audience question and

answer session, and Hockney would later cite the experience as one

of his first significant influences. A First Movement in Green (cat. no. 9)

was included in this now famous retrospective and presents us with an

unusually colourful display of forms, all of which seem in some sense

to be reacting with each other, drawn perhaps to the podium upon

which a semi-circular sits and to the top right we see one of Davie’s

floating creatures enter, surveying the fantasy world below.

Davie’s work from the 1960s is also a triumph, but a more colourful

and light-hearted one. Musicality, bright colour and wit come to

the fore. These sometimes hark back wonderfully to the 1950s, but

many evidence a new phase, a lighter, breezier, often witty decade.

We are proud to be showing some of the very best works Davie

created during this period including the monumental Music Man’s

Dream, a very personal piece formerly owned by Rogers of Rogers and

Hammerstein. And while Joy Stick no.5 and Love Life of EZ speak to his

new found exuberance and sense of fun, others like Nocturnal Things

are a progression of his deeper and more mysterious 50s works.

“Davie’s work is a confession, a declaration, a personal search for

illumination: that it has a relevance beyond himself is for the artist a

happy accident. He is not concerned with self-expression, nor with

communication, not with the depiction of reality, although one

might say that the search for reality provides the motivation of his

art. Painting for him is the symbolic expression of life itself; and life

a search for the unknown and seemingly impossible. Davie pursues

an activity that is a very fundamental one, for the urge to draw and

paint is universal, though only the child and primitive remain free of

the inhibitions imposed by a civilized society. In his emphasis on the

initiative as opposed to the intellectual, Davie takes his place among

other great figures of our time” (A. Bowness (ed.), Alan Davie, London,

1967, p. 175).

Davie’s work takes us on a journey into different times and places,

constantly rewarding the viewer with new interpretations and his

mastery of form and colour. His energy and sense of rhythm are always

there together with a magic only he possessed.

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1. Old Man’s Dream

Oil on board

Painted in 1949

48 x 71.5 inches

Provenance: The Artist

Gimpel Fils, London.

Collection of David Thomson, United Kingdom

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967, Cat. no. 147

A very rare, early work, and very much in the manner of Davie’s Birth (1949). Bowness

comments on the likeness of Birth to looking up at a magnificent church stained glass window.

Davie’s colours emerging from darkness, are related to mosaic technique. The structure of the

painting reflects the simple structure of the great Romanesque churches. These paintings are

about rebirth and regeneration and relate to the works of Klee and others for whom art was

“fruit grown on the trees of man”.

1110

2. Upsurge 1 (Speed Space)

Signed, titled, dated (verso)

Oil on canvas

Painted in August 1952

52 x 37 inches

Provenance: The Collection of David

Thomson

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie,

London, 1967, cat. no. 53

3. Upsurge No.3

Signed, inscribed and dated

(on the reverse)

Oil on canvas

Painted in August 1952.

40 x 48 inches

Provenance: Gimpel Fils, London

The Estate of the Artist

Exhibited: New York, Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer

Gallery, October 1975, catalogue not traced

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967,

Cat. no. 147

1312

4. Black Column for a Mathmetician


Oil on board

Painted in February 1953.

75.5 x 60 inches

Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by the previous owners in the 1960s

Private collection, UK

Exhibited: New York, Catherine Viviano Gallery, Alan Davie, 1956, cat. no.14

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967, cat. no. 73

1514

5. Entry of the White Diamond


Oil on board

Painted in 1955.

63 x 76 inches


Estate of the Artist

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967, cat. no.76

Entry of the White Diamond is one of Davie’s masterpieces and was painted in 1955 when Davie’s

work was receiving well deserved recognition. 1957 saw his first exhibition in the United States at

the cutting-edge Catherine Viviano Gallery in New York and the year after he had a solo show at

the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. This is a visceral painting, executed with wild, turbulent

brush strokes. Piercing whites, reds, pinks and yellows emerge from a black background. A

dazzling white diamond surmounts a complex of squares and rectangles. The diamond shape had

been present in Davie’s vocabulary of symbols for several years, and became one of his obsessive

symbols. These did not convey any specific meaning, instead, Davie viewed them as primordial

signs which have many and varying meanings at different times. Majestic in both scale and sheer

energy, Entry of the White Diamond is entirely illustrative of this moment in time, of a painter

working at the top of his game.

1716

6. Bull God No.5


Oil on board

Painted in 1955.

48 x 60 inches


Exhibited: London, Gimpel Fils, Alan Davie, 29 November – 7 January 2006, cat. no. 93


Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, cat. no. 124

In 1955, Davie made a significant breakthrough and experienced a tremendous burst of creativity with 25

important paintings appearing, twice as many as in 1954. The grid-like elements of the late 1940s and early

1950s and recessive effects of such paintings as Between Screens (1953) and Altar of the Black Diamond (1953)

which had given way to the tremendously powerful abstract impressionist style of paintings like Upsurge No.1

(1952) and Green Egg (1952), transform into a more elaborate mix of structure and swirling forms seen in works

such as Witches Sabbath (1955). Mysterious cave-like structures and visceral bone formations are seen in such

masterpieces as Fate of the Lovely Dragon (1955).

1955 is, perhaps, Davie’s greatest year, with not only the Bull God series, but such great works as Birth of Venus

(Tate), Witches Sabbath, Altar of the Moon and Seascape Erotic. Bull God No. 5 is a museum quality painting of

great importance and the last and, arguably, the most successful of the series described by Alan Bowness as

“pure inventions of never to be forgotten power”.

The dark and earthy colours and areas of extremely free and swirling brushwork mix with deliberately calligraphic

motifs amid the general chaos and turmoil. The famous blue triangle, which made its first appearance in Altar

of the Blue Diamond (1950), and, perhaps, most famously, in Blue Triangle Enters (1953), re-appears to provide

a sense of continuity and a break into the general confusion. The tremendous depth of the paintings is greatly

added to by the brilliant red central form which anchors the composition and creates a tremendous sense of

depth as the beast looks out from almost cloud-like formations, the very mists of time. The recessive effect is

further enhanced by the blue triangle and the tusks of the creature which contain their own world of shape and

space. There is an overwhelmingly primeval feeling and magic and mystery are everywhere as it stares out of an

ancient world. Part god, part animal, the painting draws upon Davie’s most powerful themes of ritual and deep

intuition. In Davie’s own words he was seeking “an expression of philosophy … the visible sign and sacrament

of all that the artist felt to be the inner meaning, the everlasting element in man and in nature, present, past

and future”. Summarising his career to date in 1966, Davie stated that he was “engaged in a ritual of religious

communion with the great eternal” and in Bull God No.5 we see the embodiment of Davie’s central purpose.

1918

7. Diamond Balance

Signed, titled, inscribed and dated (on the reverse)

Oil on board

Painted in 1956.

Opus 170

48 x 60 inches



Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, cat. no. 170

2120

9. A First Movement in Green

Signed, inscribed and dated (on the reverse)

Oil on board

Painted in 1957-58.

48 x 72 inches

Provenance: Gimpel Fils, London.

Paolo Marinotti, Milan.

Exhibited: Wakefield, City Art Gallery, Alan Davie in Retrospect, March 1958, no. 57:

this exhibition travelled to Nottingham, University, April - May 1958;

London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, June - August 1958; and Liverpool, Walker

Art Gallery, September – October 1958

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967, cat. no. 190 illustrated.

Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, p. 172, cat. no. 239

An important work by Davie from his famous 1958 retrospective. This is Davie at his most confident

and creative as he conjures wonderful forms, symbols and creatures from his subconscious.

Piercing whites, reds, pinks, yellows and blues emerge from an azure background. This is a work of

tremendous physicality and colour. As in several of his masterpieces, Davie has a central pedestal

like form as a focus for the composition and a source of magical creation. Primordial signs appear

which have many and varying meanings at different times for Davie. Majestic in both scale and

sheer power, A First Movement in Green is illustrative of this triumphal time for Davie, a painter

working at the height of his skills and international success.

2322

10. Game of Squeeze the Ball No.4

Oil on paper on canvas

Painted in 1960.

16.5 x 21 inches


Private Collection,Yorkshire

A wonderfully vibrant and joyful work by Davie showing his mastery

of colour and composition.

11. Game for Girls


Oil on board

Painted in April 1957.

40 x 48 inches


Mr and Mrs Yoland Markson, Los Angeles

Private Collection

Exhibited: Los Angeles, Esther Robles Gallery, Alan Davie, 1961


2524

12. Nocturnal Things


Oil on board

Painted in May-December 1960.

48 x 60 inches

Provenance: The Estate of the Artist


2726

13. Love Life of EZ


Oil on board

Painted in 1961.

48 x 60 inches


2928

14. Mug’s Fairy


Oil on canvas

Painted in 1961.

48 x 60 inches



3130

15. Joy Stick No 5

Signed, titled an dated (on the reverse)

Oil on canvas

Painted in 1962.

72 x 60 inches



3332

16. Witches Table

Signed and dated (lower left)

Oil on paper on canvas

Painted in 1961.

16 x 21 inches


Doughty Hanson

17. Signals for Little Tut


Oil on board

Painted in December 1963.

48 x 60 inches

Provenance: The Artist, where acquired by the previous

owner in 2007

Literature: Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan

Davie, London, 1992, cat. no.531A

3534

18. Music Man’s Dream

Signed, titled, inscribed and dated (on the reverse)

Oil on canvas

Painted in February-December 1963.

68 x 84 inches

Provenance: Richard Rodgers of Rogers and Hammerstein

Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

Private U.S. collector and thence by descent

Exhibited: New York, Martha Jackson Gallery, 1965, cat. no. 11

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, London, 1967, no.470, pl.96 cat. no. 170

Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, no.529, pl.30,

(whole chapter entitled Music Man’s Dream written by Michael Tucker)

3736

19. Little Tut’s Wagon


Oil on board

Painted in December 1963.

48 x 60 inches

Provenance: Gimpel Fils,London, where acquired by the previous owner in 1973

Exhibited: London, Gimpel Fils, Alan Davie, 1966, cat. no. 9

Hannover, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Alan Davie, 1967-1968, cat. no. 33

Dusseldorf, Kunstverein, Alan Davie, 1968, cat. no. 31

Edinburgh, Richard Demarco Gallery, Alan Davie, 1968, no. 31

New Delhi, Lalit Kala Akademi, 2nd Indian Triennale, 1971, cat. no. 7

Literature: Alan Bowness, Alan Davie,London, 1967, cat. no.472.

20. Butterfly Catcher

Signed, inscribed and dated

(on the reverse)

Oil on canvas

Painted in September 1960/

May 1964.

60 x 48 inches

Provenance:

Gimpel Fils, London

Renee L. Rupert Granville-Grossman

Literature:

Alan Bowness, Alan Davie,

London, 1967, cat.no.486

3938

21. Smile of the Chameleon No.4

Signed and dated (lower left)

Oil on board

Painted in 1967.

20 x 24 inches


ACA Gallery, New York

22. Who’s Baby


Oil on canvas

Painted in 1967.

20 x 24 inches



4140

23. Miraculous Cross


Oil on canvas

Painted in March 1968.

48 x 60 inches

Provenance: Private Collection, New York, USA

Literature: Douglas Hall and Michael Tucker, Alan Davie, London, 1992, cat. no. 592 D

4342

24. Snake Birds

Signed, titled and dated on the reverse

Oil on canvas

Painted circa 1968.

20 x 24 inches



25. Sun Worship


Oil on canvas

Painted in 1968.

20 x 24 inches

Opus 0.595E


Exhibited: New York, ACA Galleries, Alan

Davie, 1993, catalogue not traced

4544

1948 Galleria Michelangelo, Florence

1950 Gimpel Fils, London, first solo show and from then on shown regularly

1956 Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York

1957 Catherine Viviano Gallery, New York

1958 Wakefield City Art Gallery, Wakefield Whitechapel Art Gallery, London Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

1960 Gimpel Fils, London Galerie Charles Lienhard, Zurich

1961 Galleria del Naviglio, Milan Galerie Rive Droite, Paris Martha Jackson Gallery, New York

1961-2 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh Esther Robles Gallery, Los Angeles

1962 FBA Galleries, London Stedelijk Musuem, Amsterdam

1963 Galleria La Medusa, Rome Kunsternes Hus, Oslo Kunsthalle, Berne

1963 7th São Paulo Bienal

1964 Gimpel Hanover Gallery, Zurich

1965 Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield

1966 Usher Gallery, Lincoln Queen’s Gallery, Leeds Castle Museum, Norwich Rotterdamsche Kunstkring, Rotterdam

U.K.Arts Council Collection, LondonBritish Council CollectionTate, LondonVictoria and Albert Museum, LondonCity Art Gallery, BristolScottish National Gallery of Modern Art, EdinburghEdinburgh College of ArtFerens Art Gallery, HullThe Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeThe Fleming Collection, LondonThe Mercer Art Gallery, HarrogateSouthampton City Art GalleryThe Hepworth Wakefield, YorkshireLeeds Museums and GalleriesNottingham City Museums and GalleriesThe Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, BedfordPeterborough Museum and Art GalleryWorcester City and MuseumsUniversity of WarwickHatton Gallery, Newcastle Upon TyneMuseums SheffieldWhitworth Art Gallery, University of ManchesterTowner, East SussexUniversity of Leicester Aberdeen Art Gallery and MuseumsNational Museums, Northern IrelandSt Andrews UniversityHunterian Art Gallery, University of GlasgowLakelands Art Trust, CumbriaAmgueddfa Cymru, National Museum WalesEast Dunbartonshire CouncilPaisley Museum and Art Galleries, Renfrewshire Council CollectionsManchester City GalleriesWhitworth Art Gallery, University of ManchesterJerwood Collection, Hastings

AustraliaArt Gallery of South Australia, AdelaideArt Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

AustriaMuseum Des 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna

BrazilMuseum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro

1967 Galerie de France, Paris University of Minnesota Gallery, Arts Club of Chicago

1968 Kunsthalle Dusseldorf Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lubeck Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh

1970 University of Texas Musée d’Art Contemporain, Montreal

1971 Edinburgh festival, RSA Galleries

1973 Walker Art Galleries, Liverpool

1975 Galerie De France, Paris Chateau de Lucens, Switzerland Gallery Comsky, Los Angeles Gimpel Hanover Gallery, Zurich

1976 La Medusa Galleria, Rome Grace Hokin Gallery, Chicago

1977 Gallery Zoumboulakis, Athens Gimpel Weitzenhoffer Gallery, New York

1978 Gallery Maercklin, Stuggart Galerie am Palmengarten, Frankfurt

1982 Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong

1989 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

1992 McLellan Gallery, Glasgow

1993 Barbican Gallery, London

1997 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

2003 Tate St Ives

ALAN DAVIE

Selected Solo Exhibitions Public Collections

CanadaNational Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

FranceFoundation Maeght, St Paul

GermanyStaatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden

IrelandArts Council of Ireland, DublinTrinity College, Dublin

ItalyPeggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

The NetherlandsStedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

New ZealandCity of Auckland Art Gallery

NorwayNational Gallery, Oslo

SwitzerlandKunsthaus, BaselKunsthaus, BerneKunsthaus, Zurich

United StatesMuseum of Modern Art, New YorkMuseum of Fine Arts, BostonMuseum of Fine Arts, DallasYale University Art Gallery, New HavenArt Museum, PhoenixCarnegie Institute, PittsburghMuseum of Art, San FranciscoWashington University Museum, WashingtonMetropolitan Museum, New Y

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