Exhibitions

Alan Davie: Joy of Printmaking

Online exhibition

A selection of screenprints by Alan Davie which can be found in permanent collections of Modern Galleries in England and Scotland


Each print £1,000+VAT (unframed)


In the 1960s Alan Davie took to printmaking. Stanley Jones, who had been charges with setting up a new printmaking studio, Curwen, met Davie in Cornwall in the late 1950s and invited him to make some prints. At first Davie hesitated believing it would be impossible to make a print in the same spontaneous manner he employed in his paintings, but in 1961 he agreed, making the first of a series of works for Curwen. He adopted the practice of serial creation which he had used in his drawings, quickly making marks and drawings on a series of lithographic plates, and getting the printers to print them on different presses, change the colours, print them upside-down and layer the imagery.

Jones recalls: He had the idea of using workshops with all the printers at his beck and call. That is a change in the way artists worked and it occurred in the 1960s. Davie had an important influence on the other printers of the period. He freed up the approach to graphic work generally. He was like a breath of fresh air for printmaking, very open-minded about creative accidents as they happened. He was fascinated by accident and incorporated it into the work.

Davie also made a number of prints in Zurich for the London-based firm Editions Alecto, notably the landmark Zurich Improvisations, 1965, where once more, the emphasis was on improvisation and on testing the possibilities to their full.

Bird Noises, 1964

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 80 cm

£1,000+VAT 

Celtic Dreamboat II, 1965

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 80 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Celtic Dreamboat III, 1965

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 80 cm
AP

V£1,000+VAT 

Magic Picture I, 1977

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 87 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Magic Picture II, 1978

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 78 cm
Edition 78/100

£1,000+VAT 

Blue Incantation, 1999

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
88 x 88 cm 
Edition 9/10

£1,000+VAT 

Island Fantasy, 1999

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
78 x 85 cm
AP 3/3

£1,000+VAT

Unique Print, 1999

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
106 x 78 cm

£1,000+VAT 

Free Wheeler, 2000

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
75 x 85 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Tresor Tone 2, 2000

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
88 x 73 cm

£1,000+VAT 

Tresor Tone 9, 2000

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
87 x 73 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Cueva Negra, 2001

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
78 x 88 cm 

£1,000+VAT 

Haveth High, 2001

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
75 x 88 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Sonic Sin, 2001

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
87 x 74 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT

To Celtic Spirit No.3, 2001

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
75 x 97 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT

Follow the Last to Leave No.1, 2002

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
57 x 78 cm
Unique poroof

£1,000+VAT 

Sleep No.2, 2002

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
56 x 78 cm
AP

£1,000+VAT 

Sleep No.3, 2002

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
Unique proof with gouache
56 x 78 cm

£1,000+VAT 

Grangemouth Image, 2009

ALAN DAVIE

Screenprint
78 x 88 cm 
AP

£1,000+VAT