PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Lizzie Cowan

mail@openeyegallery.co.uk

0131 557 1020/0131 558 9872

Open Eye Gallery

34 Abercromby Place, Edinburgh EH3 6QE

ALAN DAVIE CBE HRSA

Friday 24th June to Tuesday 12th July 2011

Private View: Thursday 23rd June 2011

Born in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh, in 1920, Davie trained at Edinburgh

College of Art from 1938 to 1941. After the War he settled in England. In the

1950s he won international recognition for his explosive abstract paintings, which

rivaled those of the American Abstract Expressionists. Working directly on the

floor and without any preconceived plan, he attacked the canvas with broad,

powerful brush strokes, producing some of the most powerful, epic works of the

postwar period. By the end of the decade his work had been bought by some

of the world’s leading museums, and his success inspired many young Scottish

artists.

In the 1960s Davie’s brushwork became more controlled and within his imagery

mysterious signs and symbols began to appear and gather in room-like settings.

In 1975 Davie acquired a second home on the island of St Lucia in the

Caribbean and this brought about a change in his working pattern. He would

make drawings in St Lucia during the winter months, and then paintings, which

develop from the drawings, in England in the summer. Reflecting this change,

the paintings from the mid-1970s have a new precision and clarity. From the

1980s symbols found in sources as various as American Indian pottery, ancient

maps, prehistoric stone carvings and Aboriginal art, all found their way into his

work, mingling in mysterious and magical ways.

A show of Alan Davie’s paintings, prints and brushworks, arranged in partnership

with the Open Eye, will also run concurrently from the 6th June until the 11th

August 2011 at the Burgh Halls in Linlithgow.

QUARTET: Ruth Nicol, Charlotte McDonald, Elaine Speirs and Joan Doerr

Friday 24th June to Tuesday 12th July 2011

The Open Eye Gallery welcomes four new artists: Ruth Nicol, Charlotte McDonald,

Elaine Speirs and Joan Doerr.

LE CORBUSIER (1887-1965)

Friday 24th June to Saturday 6th August 2011

Complete Entre-Deux suite of seventeen lithographs, including the title page in

colour, to be shown in Eye Two.

NICOLA BECCI

Friday 24th June to Saturday 6th August 2011

New collection of etched and oxidised silver and gold jewellery featuring Becci’s

characteristic calligraphic designs.