ALAN DAVIE

Alan Davie Biography

 

 

ALAN DAVIE (b. 1920)

Alan Davie is one of Scotland most internationally recognised artists with works in public collections across the world.

Davie studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1938-40. As a young man he developed a love of the arts, wrote poetry and played the saxophone in a jazz band. In 1945 Davie was deeply impressed by two exhibitions - Picasso at the V&A and Klee at the Tate. Not long after he visited the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice where he came across the paintings of Jackson Pollock. Davie was inspired by American Abstract Expressionism as well as Surrealism and the Cobra group. He developed his own unique form of expression combining mythic imagery, enigmatic symbols, later taking inspiration from African and Oceanic Art as well as Zen Buddhism.

In 1956 Davie made his first trip to the United States where he was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery and was introduced to Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibition in 2000 which was followed by a survey held the following year at the Cobra Museum for Modern Art in the Netherlands. More recently, in 2003-2004, the Tate St. Ives exhibition Jingling Space celebrated Davie's significant contribution to painting.


Selected Exhibitions

Shining Spirit, Westheimer Family Collection, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, 2008
Eye-Musi - Klee, Kandinsky and all that Jazz, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
An Leabhar Mor - The Great Book of Gaelic, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, 2005; City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 2003; Gallery Modertn Art, Glasgow, 2002
Alan Davie, Bilder aus 50 Jahren, Galeries Georg Nothelfer, Berlin, 2003
Alan Davie - Jingling Spance, Tate St, Ives, Cornwall, 2003, 20 Jahre Galerie Steinek, en Portrat, Galerie Steinek, Vienna, 2002
Bienal 50 Anos, Museu de Arte Contemporanea da Universidade de Sao Paulo, 2001
Alan Davie, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2000
Times are Changin, Kunsthalle Bremen, 2000
Top in Pop, Galerie Dobele Dresden, 2000
Lineamente Inerntaional, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, 1999



Selected Public Collections

Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Austria
Museum Des 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna,

Brazil
Museum of Moder Art, Rio de Janeiro


Canada
Musée D'Art Contemporain, Montreal
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON

France
Foundation Maeght, St Paul

Germany
Stattliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden
Stadtliche Kunstgalerie, Bochum

Italy
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

Netherlands
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

New Zealand
City of Auckland Art Gallery

Norway
National Gallery, Oslo

Portugal
Berardo Museum, Lisbon
Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigao, Lisbon

South Africa
Iziko South African National Art Gallery, Cape Town

Switzerland
Schaulager, Münchenstein / Basel

United Kingdom
Arts Council of Enland
British Council
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, Birmingham
Contemporary Art Society
City Art Centre, Edinburgh
Fitzwilliam Gallery, Cambridge
Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
Royal Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh
Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
Tate Britain, London
Tate Modern, London
Ulster Museum, Belfast
Victoria and Albert Museum
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester


USA
Museum of Moder Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum, New York
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum of Art, San Francisco
Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas
MIT List Visual Art Centre, Cambridge, MA
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK