Sandven Art

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    Alan Davie (1920–2014)

    Scottish

    Alan Davie was a Scottish painter whose work brings together improvisation, vivid colour and an extensive vocabulary of signs. Trained at Edinburgh College of Art, he also worked as a jazz musician. His paintings and drawings move between energetic abstraction and recognisable imagery, drawing on sources ranging from maps and ancient carvings to his interest in Zen Buddhism. Rhythm and discovery are central to his art.

    Biography

    Born in Grangemouth in 1920, Alan Davie studied at Edinburgh College of Art before developing a practice that questioned carefully planned composition. Encounters with post-war American painting in 1948 encouraged his interest in freedom of gesture. His experience as a jazz saxophonist offers a useful parallel to the improvisation of his visual work. Davie's imagery became more clearly articulated during the later 1950s and 1960s. Signs, animals and enigmatic emblems appear among areas of colour, inviting associations without settling into a single narrative. He drew on a wide range of visual cultures rather than a single symbolic system. Drawing offered a direct setting for this exploration, while his paintings could involve extended periods of revision. His work is represented in the National Galleries of Scotland, whose collection traces several stages of his career.

    Available works

    Alan Davie – Drawing

    Drawing

    Collecting & enquiries

    A work by Alan Davie offers an entry into the dialogue between gesture and symbol in post-war painting. Look for the rhythm of the marks and the way apparently familiar forms resist a fixed reading. Explore the work listed here and contact Sandven Art for its individual details.

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