Davie, Alan (1920-2014)
3 works
Davie is a Scottish painter and printmaker, educated at the Edinburgh School of Art 1938-40. He explored a diverse range of activities before returning to painting. He has earned a living making jewellery, as a jazz musician, as well as writing poetry. 1953-56 Davie taught at the Central School of Art and Crafts, where he first became interested in African and Pacific art. As early as 1958 the idea of intuition became a key subject in his work, expressed in the form of enigmatic signs. During the 1960s his paintings and lithographs expressed such themes with increasing clarity. In 1971 he made his first trip to the island of St Lucia, where he began to spend half of each year. This saw a number of Caribbean influences in his work. Taking on the role of disinherited shaman, Davie created a synthesis of mythologies from a variety of cultures for a modern civilisation devoid of its own village myths.
