Alan Davie (1920-2014)

Upsurge No.3, 1952

dated '20 8 52' (upper left), signed, dated, and inscribed 'Alan Davie/Aug 52/SPEED SPACE' (to reverse)

oil on board

122 x 101cm.

Provenance:

The Artist's Estate;

Private Collection;

Bonhams. London, Modern British and Irish Art, 22 June 2022, lot 60.

Literature:

Alan Bowness, Alan Davie, Lund Humphries, London, 1967, cat.no.147

The present lot is the third in a sequence of works titled Upsurge and subtitled Speed Space, each painted by Davie in 1952. The critic Robert Melville observed that Davie's work of this period relates to the fascination with science fiction prevalent among the artists of the emerging Independent Group, as well as the sacrificial imagery of Francis Bacon.

Across the Upsurge pictures, Davie's application of paint is thick, the final image resultant of process rather than design. Upon the acquisition of another work from 1952 (Black Mirror), which matches approach and palette of the Upsurge series, the Tate gallery interviewed Davie. He elaborated on his practice around this date:

"The paintings of the period that remain are few — the outcome of violent and mainly destructive work — most of them have many various paintings underneath them... each successive image being the result of the destruction of the previous one (obliteration by a new image, not removal of).

At that time I felt the need to produce a work by a flash of intuition — if it didn't come off I did another on top. There is no doubt that many good things were destroyed in the process — but the result could never have been achieved by any other way." (Alan Davie quoted in The Tate Gallery Report 1972–1974, Tate Gallery London, 1975).