ALAN DAVIE (1920-2014)

‘Davie’s work is a confession, a declaration, a personal search for illumination: that it has a relevance beyond himself is for the artist a happy accident. He is not concerned with self-expression, nor with communication, not with the depiction of reality, although one might say that the search for reality provides the motivation of his art. Painting for him is the symbolic expression of life itself; and life a search for the unknown and seemingly impossible. Davie pursues an activity that is a very fundamental one, for the urge to draw and paint is universal, though only the child and primitive remain free of this inhibitions imposed by a civilized society. In his emphasis on the initiative as opposed to the intellectual, Davie takes his place among other great figures of our time’ (A. Bowness (ed.), Alan Davie, London, 1967, p. 175).