 Crab Creation, 1957-58 oil on board, 48 x 72 in / 122 x 183 cm Alan Davie Early Works "... an artist who bids to be recognized as the most remarkable British painter to have emerged in recent years." (The Times, 6 March 1958) Described as Scotland's greatest living painter, Alan Davie has had a prolific career, spanning six decades and his reputation as an artistic visionary producing innovative and intuitive paintings continues to grow. Following his successful retrospective at Tate St. Ives in 2003-4, Gimpel Fils is pleased to present an exhibition of works from the 1950s and early 1960s, which chart Davie's development as a leading exponent of abstraction. Having met Peggy Guggenheim in Venice 1948, Alan Davie was one of the first British painters to be exposed to early examples of American Abstract expressionism. Paralleling developments made by Pollock, Rothko and De Kooning, Davie experimented with abstraction throughout the 1950s, producing canvasses such as "Domain of the Serpent", 1951, which juxtaposes geometric shapes with the beginnings of his fluid gestural brushwork. Executed in rich impasto black and red oils this painting hints at how Davie's work was to develop over the next decade. Throughout this period, Alan Davie produced works that indicate an interest in the relationship between the vitality of life, painting and spirituality. Heavily influenced by his love of jazz (Davie is an accomplished musician as well as painter), the works in this exhibition illustrate how Davie came to marry a sense of improvisation and spontaneity within a bounded structure. Having also viewed Peggy Guggenheim's collection of Surrealist works, Davie's interest in the freeing potential of music, seems wholly in synch with Breton's notions of automatism and the release from self-consciousness. "Goddess of the Wheel", from January 1960, demonstrates the agility of Davie's approach to painting, with its fusion of colour and movement. In this work, an underlying structure is present, across which dynamic, free flowing forms give expression to the creative subconscious. Other recent exhibitions of Alan Davie's artwork include The Barbican Art Gallery, London (1993), The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (1997), COBRA Museum, Amstelveen (2001). His work can be found in numerous international public collections including Tate Modern, London, The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Museu de Arte Contemporanea, São Paulo. Exhibition: 29 November 2005 - 7 January 2006 Gallery hours: Mon-Fri 10 am - 5.30 pm, Sat 11 am - 4 pm Gimpel Fils 30 Davies Street GB-London, W1K 4NB Telephone +44 20 7493 2488 Fax +44 20 7629 5732 Email info@gimpelfils.com www.gimpelfils.com |
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