ALAN DAVIE

b.1920

Pink Meditation

Oil on canvas

121.9 x 152.4 cm.

Signed , inscribed Opus 0945, titled and dated July 79 on the reverse

PROVENANCE

Gimpel Fils Gallery, London

EXHIBITIONS

Alan Davie, Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, April 1981 no.5

Born in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh, and studied at Edinburgh College of Art in the late 1930s. After World War II he travelled widely and became influenced by Jackson Pollock, Paul Klee and Joan Miro among others. Like Pollock, many of Davie's works have been executed by standing above the painting, which is laid on the ground. He adds layers of paint until sometimes the original painting has been covered over many times. Declaring that the spiritual path is incompatible with planning ahead, he has attempted to paint as automatically as possible, which is intended to bring forth elements of his unconscious. In this, he shares a vision with surrealist painters such as Miro, and he has also been fascinated by the work of seminal psychoanalyst Carl Jung. He is adamant that his images are not pure abstraction, but all have significance as symbols.