The abstract painter was born in Scotland in 1920, with a distinguished career spanning from the 1950s to now. The exhibition presents a snapshot throughout the decades of Davie's brilliantly-coloured canvases, with a special focus on his working methods today. The exhibition, 'Alan Davie,' runs from 16 March until 5 June 2010. The Gallery is open Mon-Sat, 10-5pm, and admission is free.

The exhibition is part of a year long celebration of Davie's life, in honour of his 90th birthday; other exhibitions of Davie's work this year will be shown at Callendar House, Falkirk; Kings Place Gallery, London; and Northumbria University Gallery, following an opening exhibition at his long-time dealer, Gimpel Fils, London. His works - painting, drawing, watercolours and prints - are featured in major collections worldwide, including the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.

Davie was a rising star when he was invited to become the University of Leeds's third Gregory Fellow in Painting in 1957-59. It was at Leeds that Davie came in contact with several scientists and toyed with notions of randomness. Since then, his brightly-coloured painting has been characterised by its automatic style and its spontaneous technique. Davie often works on more than one painting at a time. He stated in 2003 that, 'Mainly ideas and forms come intuitively out of the act of painting, driven by an intense inner urge to create, without any specific pre-conceived formal concept'.

He was influenced by surrealism and the collections of Peggy Guggenheim, but his work is not a direct response to the surrealist movement. Davie is more concerned with the process of painting. Comparisons have been drawn between Davie and artists such as Jackson Pollock, 'father of American Abstract Expressionism,' though their outcomes look very different.

For Davie, painting is an experience, one which makes life vital and thrilling: he is a keen jazz musician, and enjoyed flying gliders and sailing as a young man. His art demonstrates this experiential quality in its expressiveness and is reminiscent of jazz in its spontaneity and free-form expression. Davie sees diverse creative activities, such as playing music or painting, as interchangeable, and undertakes them without any conscious intention or preconceived plan.

Over time, Davie's work has also become more influenced by symbols and spirituality, especially those of native cultures and tribal arts from around the world. His work of recent decades differs from his more 'musical' earlier works. Objects and symbols have become more important to Davie over time. He also uses words and poetry spontaneously, often with no direct relation to elements in the painting, creating new relationships between image and text.

For this exhibition, the Gallery will be showing major works from each decade since his Gregory Fellowship at Leeds. It concludes with a focus on his current work and working methods, including doodles, sketches and large-scale paintings made in the last decade. The exhibition will be accompanied by a programme of events, including a family fun day. Full event details can be found on the gallery website:

www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery/events.htm

Notes to Editors:

IMAGE CONTACT & EXHIBITION CURATOR:
Layla Bloom, Exhibitions Officer
t: 0113 343 2777 e: l.bloom@leeds.ac.uk m: 0772835 0054

ADMISSION/ HOURS:
10.00 - 17.00, Mon-Saturday
Admission: FREE

VENUE INFORMATION:
The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery

Tel: +44 (0)113 3432778
Fax: +44 (0)113 3435561
E-mail: gallery@leeds.ac.uk

The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery is an accredited art museum at the heart of the University of Leeds campus, recently refurbished in 2008 with funds from the Audrey & Stanley Burton Charitable Trust. The Gallery offers both a programme of temporary exhibitions and a display of selected treasures from the University Art Collection in its main gallery. An Education Room houses the University's collection of drawings and works on paper, while also offering space for private study, research and teaching.

Accumulated over more than a hundred years, the Collection consists mainly of European, principally British paintings, drawings and prints, dating from the 17th century up to the present day, with small collections of sculpture, ceramics, and photographs. Outstanding elements are the Sadler Gift of early 20th-century British art, the collections of drawings and paintings by artists of the Camden Town and Bloomsbury groups and their contemporaries, and works by former Gregory Fellows in Painting and Sculpture, and the recent gift of works from the late Stanley & Audrey Burton's personal collection of 20th-century British art.

GIMPEL FILS
www.gimpelfils.com

Gimpel Fils was founded in 1946 by brothers Charles and Peter Gimpel. They added "Fils" in homage to their father René, the dealer and collector whose journal Diary of an Art Dealer was first published in 1966. During the fifties and sixties the gallery was associated with the avant-garde, giving Lynn Chadwick, Anthony Caro, Peter Lanyon and Alan Davie their first exhibitions, alongside exhibitions of Larry Rivers, Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein.

Whilst the gallery continues to work with an older generation of British abstract painters including Alan Davie and Albert Irvin in keeping with its history, under the direction of fourth generation dealer Rene Gimpel and co-director Jackie Haliday, Gimpel Fils continues to develop its contemporary programme with the recent inclusion of Andres Serrano, Callum Morton and Hannah Maybank.

The gallery underwent major refurbishment in the winter of 2000 in order to update the gallery space to reflect the dynamism and contemporary nature of Gimpel Fils' exhibition programme. The inaugural installation by Richard Wilson marked a new era in the gallery's history and cemented Gimpel Fils' continuing commitment to contemporary art.