Zurich Improvisations VII
- Artist:
- Type: Print
- Medium: Lithograph
- Production Date: 1965
- Copy Number: 2
- Edition: 25
- Description: Created in the printing studio of Matthieu in Zurich, with a team of master printmakers. Davie produced a series of 34 lithographs during his time at these studios.
In 1997, Davie described their working process in the production of these lithographs:
'They were intended as three images from five plates each, but as the proofing continued and accelerated over an intense period of some five days, ended up as an edition of thirty-four prints, each made from up to ten different plates, some printed upside down'.
From 1947 to 1949, Davie travelled extensively in Europe on an art scholarship. While studying Renaissance art in Italy he was also inspired by the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollock, whose work he saw at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Davie was immediately influenced by Pollock‘s abstract style and his energetic, gestural approach to painting. As a result, Davie was one of the first European artists to respond enthusiastically to American Abstract Expressionism when he met Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and others in New York in 1956.
The influence of these encounters on Davie‘s own style is evident in 'Zurich Improvisations'. He skilfully combines the contrasting styles of the time-consuming technique of lithography with expressive lines and splashes of paint. Davie‘s own hand is expressed in the vitality of the composition. His working method, which was often improvisatory, was closely related to his experience as a jazz musician. - Dimensions: 65cm H x 95cm W framed
- Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Store
- Related Material: AC/AD/D/3
- Related Material: AC/OF/1967/1
- Accession Number: 1967.1
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
