Alan Davie, Scottish painter, born on 28 September 1920.
After attending art classes at the Edinburgh College of Art from 1938 to 1940, he discovered modernism through the exhibitions of works by Picasso or Paul Klee. Before dedicating himself to painting, he was a making jewelry and was also a jazz musician.
At the end of the '40-es he travelled throughout Europe, spending his time mainly in Italy. The Davie discovered not only the works of the pre-Renaissance masters, but also the works in the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. It was truly a revelation, for Davie found among many other painting the works made Jackson Pollock at the beginning of the 40-s. The artist was very much influenced by Pollock, adopting not only his themes and some of the ideas, but also the procedure of painting with the canvas on the floor.
At the beginning of the next decade Davie taught for a while at Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, where he would eventually African and Pacific art.
As he was enjoying his financial and critical succeses, Davie began to experiment, painting very lange canvases, monumental compositions of several square meters. Later in life he became interested in Zen Buddhism and he chose to reject existentialism and represent in his works immediate emotions.
