Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 10

Leo Davy
Leo Davy, British, 1982 oil on board, large abstract work, pinks, whites, blues

1982

About the Item

A striking 1982 work by the British abstract artist Leo Davy. Leo Davy was born in 1924 in Shipley, Yorkshire, the seventh of nine surviving children to an art teacher and painter father and a mother who was the daughter of a painter. At the age of just ten he won a national drawing competition and in 1939 he studied at the Kingston School of Art, under Reginald Brill, before moving on the Slade School of Fine Art between 1942 and 1945, then evacuated to Oxford due to the Blitz, where he studied alongside such future stars as Kyffin Williams. Davy was included in a mixed summer show at the important contemporary gallery Gimpel-Fils in 1950 alongside avant-garde artists of the day, including Patrick Heron, William Gear, Alan Davie and William Scott. Davy was strongly dedicated to the development of abstraction. It was through his panel paintings and works on paper that he reduced and refined scenes of everyday life into his own carefully considered abstract vision, applying thinck paint and washes to form blocks of colour, often quite angular. He settled in a dilapidated cottage in North Cornwall in 1968 with his wife, where he lived and worked until his sudden death in 1987. Davy was a self-imposed outsider, as David Duncan remembers: Davy was 'a man of very few words, in fact would only speak if spoken to'. Although Davy's main intent was to isolate himself and to follow an independent line of philosophical enquiry through his painting, his art was an essential means of communication to the rest of the world. As Davy proclaimed in 1946, at the age of 20, 'I only want to paint what only I can paint.' The details of the work are as follows: Leo Davy (British, 1924 – 1987) Cornish scene, c. 1982 Oil on board Signed and dated ‘Leo Davy 82’ (lower right) Oil on board 23.1/4 x 29.3/8 in. (59 x 72 cm.)
  • Creator:
    Leo Davy
  • Creation Year:
    1982
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 23.25 in (59.06 cm)Width: 29.38 in (74.63 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    oil on board, float mounted. Some good impasto. Abrasions to edges of board. Good impasto. Behind glass, in a wooden box frame.
  • Gallery Location:
    Petworth, GB
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU540316158132

More From This Seller

View All
British 20th Century abstract oil painting by Roger Smith in shades of pink
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Roger Smith (British, 1932 – 2004) Eight, 2a Oil on board Signed and titled (on the reverse) 18 x 12 in. (46 x 30.5 cm.)
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

20th Century British abstracted female nude in green
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Roger Smith (British, 1932 – 2004) Abstracted female nude Signed and dated ‘Roger Smith 89’ (on the reverse) Oil on board 23 x 13 in. (58.4 x 33 cm.)
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

British 20th Century oil on board abstract painting with yellows 'autumnal forms
By Roy Bizley
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Roy Bizley (British, 1930-1999) Autumnal forms Oil on board 24.3/4 x 19.3/4 in. (63 x 50 cm.) Provenance: From the artist’s studio
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

British square abstract oil painting 'Abstracted landscape' by Roy Bizley
By Roy Bizley
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Roy Bizley (British, 1930-1999) Abstracted landscape Oil on board 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61cm.) Provenance: From the artist’s studio Born in Swindon in 1930, Bizley studied painting and l...
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Cornish oil painting, British 20th Century abstract by Carl Jaycock
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Carl Jaycock (British, b. 1963) Sea light Signed and dated ‘C JAYCOCK 85’ (lower right) Oil on board 24 x 24 in. (61 x 61 cm.) Cornwall based Jaycock has...
Category

Late 20th Century Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

British, 21st Century abstract oil painting 'Moonlit Horses'
By Max Andrews
Located in Petworth, West Sussex
Max Andrews (British, b. 1969) Moonlit horses Signed and dated ‘Max Andrews 19’ (lower right) Oil on board 12.1/5 x 12.1/5 in. (32 x 31.8 cm.)
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Animal Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

You May Also Like

"Radiance" Abstracted Figure Oil Painting
By Danny McCaw
Located in Denver, CO
Danny McCaw's (US based) "RAdiance" is an original, handmade oil painting with impasto brushstrokes that depicts an ambiguous figure of white and grey sitting in an interior of grey ...
Category

2010s Abstract Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Red Symphony" Oil Painting
By Danny McCaw
Located in Denver, CO
Danny McCaw's (US based) "Red Symphony" is an original, handmade oil painting with impasto brushstrokes that depicts two ambiguous human figures of white and grey sitting in an inter...
Category

2010s Abstract Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Oil on Hardboard, Floral Composition by Ferdinand Springer
By Ferdinand Springer
Located in Berlin, DE
Floral composition "Blossom", 1950-1959 by Ferdinand Springer ( 1907-1998 ), Germany. Oil on hardboard. Signed lower left: Springer. Signed verso: ...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Fiberboard

GOLDEN RAPSODY - Massimo Caiafa Abstract Oil on Board, Italy.2020
By Massimo Caiafa
Located in Napoli, IT
Massimo Caiafa (Naples 23/05/1965) is a contemporary painter who currently lives in Naples. Trained in a family of artists and antique dealers, he lived in New York for many years, e...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

POP ART - Massimo Caiafa Abstract Oil on Board, Italy.2021
By Massimo Caiafa
Located in Napoli, IT
Massimo Caiafa (Naples 23/05/1965) is a contemporary painter who currently lives in Naples. Trained in a family of artists and antique dealers, he lived in New York for many years, e...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Figure Composition"
By Vaclav Vytlacil
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Signed Lower Right Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) He was born to Czechoslovakian parents in 1892 in New York City. Living in Chicago as a youth, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, returning to New York when he was 20. From 1913 to 1916, he enjoyed a scholarship from the Art Students League, and worked with John C. Johansen (a portraitist whose expressive style resembled that of John Singer Sargent), and Anders Zorn. He accepted a teaching position at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1916, remaining there until 1921. This enabled him to travel to Europe to study Cézanne’s paintings and works of the Old Masters. He traveled to Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich seeking the works of Titian, Cranach, Rembrandt, Veronese, and Holbein, which gave him new perspective. Vytlacil studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, settling there in 1921. Fellow students were Ernest Thurn and Worth Ryder, who introduced him to famous abstractionist Hans Hofmann. He worked with Hofmann from about 1922 to 1926, as a student and teaching assistant. During the summer of 1928, after returning to the United States, Vytlacil gave lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on modern European art. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the Art Students League faculty. After one year, he returned to Europe and successfully persuaded Hofmann to teach at the League as well. He spent about six years in Europe, studying the works of Matisse, Picasso, and Dufy. In 1935, he returned to New York and became a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936. He later had teaching posts at Queens College in New York; the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California; Black Mountain College in North Carolina; and the Art Students League. His paintings exhibit a clear inclination toward modernism. His still lives and interiors from the 1920s indicate an understanding of the art of Cézanne. In the 1930s, his works displayed two very different kinds of art at the same time. His cityscapes and landscapes combine Cubist-inspired spatial concerns with an expressionistic approach to line and color. Vytlacil also used old wood, metal, cork, and string in constructions, influenced by his friend and former student, Rupert Turnbull. He eventually ceased creating constructions as he considered them too limiting. The spatial challenges of painting were still his preference. During the 1940s and 1950s, his works indicated a sense of spontaneity not felt in his earlier work. He married Elizabeth Foster in Florence, Italy, in 1927 and they lived and worked in Positano, Italy for extended periods of time. Later on, they divided their time between homes in Sparkill, New York and Chilmark, Massachusetts, where Vyt, as he was affectionately called, taught at the Martha's Vineyard Art...
Category

1940s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Board, Oil

Recently Viewed

View All