The Alchemist's Mirror No. 1 [Opus 1357]
About this artwork
From the mid-1990s Davie made a number of large landscape and cityscape paintings. The spiralling form on the right of the canvas derives from the large stone slab from the Gavr Inis Gallery Grave in Baden, southern France. Similar motifs are also found in Caribbean and Aboriginal art, and it is this common ground between different, apparently unrelated civilizations and cultures which fascinates Davie. The mask-like head in the centre is taken from a cave painting and may, in its original form, depict a sorcerer.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Alan Davie (1920 - 2014) Scottish
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title:The Alchemist's Mirror No. 1 [Opus 1357]
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date created:1997
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:152.00 x 183.00 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Presented by the artist 2000
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accession number:GMA 4325
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gallery:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Alan Davie
Alan Davie
Davie was born in Grangemouth, near Edinburgh and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. In 1948 he saw the work of the American Abstract Expressionists and was impressed by their intensity and freedom. He abandoned traditional methods of composition and subject matter and sought to free his art from...