22-631: Edinburgh Printmakers is a printmaking studio and gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has played a key role in the careers of Alan Davie , John Bellany , Carol Rhodes and Kate Downie . Edinburgh Printmakers was established in 1967, Britain's first open access printmaking studio promoting wider participation in the arts. In 2019 the Printmakers moved from its former home on Union Street to Castle Mills, Dundee Street in Fountainbridge ,
44-492: A 2-CD set on Intakt), it became one of the great large-scale European improvising ensembles. Early documentation is spotty – the only other recording from its early years is Stringer (FMP, now available on Intakt paired with the later "Study II") – but, beginning in the late 1980s, the Swiss label Intakt set out to document the band more thoroughly. The result was a series of ambitious, album-length compositions designed to give all
66-537: A building which was once the headquarters for the North British Rubber Company . They opened with exhibitions by German printmaker Thomas Kilpper [ de ] and Scottish artist Callum Innes . Janet Archer was appointed CEO in 2021 The building at Castle Mills won architecture awards for re-use and social impact. The organisation is successful in winning subsidies and investment in order to ensure that creative art spaces are open to
88-602: A modern and contemporary art gallery in Mayfair. There is also a John Bellany self-portrait featuring Davie in the National Galleries of Scotland . Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music , contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in
110-563: A potter, artist, and designer. Together they had one child, a daughter, Jane, born in 1949. Art collections and museums owning work by Alan Davie include the Art Institute of Chicago , Dallas Museum of Art , Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco , Metropolitan Museum of Art , Museum of Modern Art , National Galleries of Scotland , Peggy Guggenheim Collection , Tate Gallery , Art Gallery of New South Wales , Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University , Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at
132-532: A public for his work on the continent and in America some time before the British art public could reconcile itself to his mixture of ancient and newly invented symbols. In his lectures Davie stressed the importance of improvisation as his chosen method. His stance was that of an inspired soothsayer resisting the inroads of rational civilization. Musically, Davie also played piano , cello and bass clarinet . In
154-702: The Salon des Artistes Français in 1925. Alan Davie studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1937 to 1941. An early exhibition of his work came through the Society of Scottish Artists . After the Second World War , Davie played tenor saxophone in the Tommy Sampson Orchestra, which was based in Edinburgh and broadcast and toured in Europe. He also earned a living making jewellery during
176-576: The University of Oklahoma , Harvard University Art Museums , Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden , Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum , Oklahoma City Museum of Art , The Priseman Seabrook Collection , San Diego Museum of Art , Southampton City Art Gallery , The Hepworth Wakefield and Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum . A photographic portrait exists in both the National Portrait Gallery collection and Gimpel Fils ,
198-547: The 1980s and 1990s. He was briefly a member of the Michael Nyman Band in the 1980s, performing on the soundtrack of The Draughtsman's Contract . Guy's interests in improvisation and formal composition received their grandest form in the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra. Originally formed to perform Guy's composition Ode in 1972 (released as a 2-LP set on Incus and later, in expanded form, as
220-565: The NOW Orchestra and ROVA (the piece Witch Gong Game inspired by images by the visual artist Alan Davie ). His current improvising activities include piano trios with Marilyn Crispell and Agusti Fernandez . He has also recorded several albums for ECM, which often focus on the interface between improvisers and electronics, including his work in Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and his own Ceremony . Guy's session work in
242-600: The UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr , and later taught there. Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist Howard Riley and drummer Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of John Stevens ' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spontaneous Music Ensemble . In the early 1970s, he
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#1732786665437264-537: The band members and their internal groupings), Three Pieces , and Double Trouble Two . The group's activities subsided in the mid-1990s, but it was never formally disbanded, and reconvened in 2008 for a one-off concert in Switzerland. In the mid-1990s Guy also created a second, smaller ensemble, the Barry Guy New Orchestra. Guy has also written for other large improvising ensembles, such as
286-571: The early 1970s his interest in free improvisation led to a close association with the percussionist Tony Oxley . His paintings have also inspired music by others, notably the bassist and composer Barry Guy . Davie designed the jacket for R.W. Feachem's book Prehistoric Scotland , published by Batsford in 1963. The design was based upon motifs found on Pictish symbol stones. He died aged 93 in Hertfordshire , England on 5 April 2014. On 29 October 1947, in Edinburgh, Davie married Janet Gaul,
308-1003: The instrument with sticks and other implements inserted between the strings and fingerboard. His improvisations are often percussive and unpredictable, inhabiting no discernible harmonic territory and pushing into unknown regions. However, they can also be melodious and tender with due regard for harmonic integration with other players, and at times he will even play with a straight jazz swing feel. Similarly, in his concert works, Guy manages to alternate harmonic and rhythmic complexity worthy of 1960s experimentalists such as Penderecki and Stockhausen with joyous, often ecstatic, melody. Works such as "Flagwalk" for string orchestra and "Fallingwater – Concerto for Orchestra" display Guy's compositional skill in handling extended forms and writing for large instrumental groups. Some of his compositions, such as "Witch Gong Game" for ensemble, use graphic notation in conjunction with cue cards to lead performers into playing and improvising material from numbered sections of
330-492: The players in the band maximum opportunity for expression, while still preserving a rigorous sense of form: Zurich Concerts (with Anthony Braxton ), Harmos , Double Trouble (originally written for an encounter with Alexander von Schlippenbach 's Globe Unity Orchestra , though the eventual CD was just for the LJCO), Theoria (a concerto for guest pianist Irène Schweizer ), Portraits (a 2-CD set of musical portraits of
352-522: The pop field includes playing double bass on the song "Nightporter", from the Japan album Gentlemen Take Polaroids . He is married to the early music violinist Maya Homburger . After spending some years in Ireland, they now live in Switzerland. They run the small label Maya, which releases a variety of records in the genres of free improvisation, baroque music and contemporary composition. In 2016, Guy
374-525: The postwar period. Davie travelled widely and in Venice became influenced by other painters of the period, such as Paul Klee, Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró, as well as by a wide range of cultural symbols. In particular, his painting style owes much to his affinity with Zen . Having read Eugen Herrigel 's book Zen in the Art of Archery (1953), he assimilated the spontaneity which Zen emphasises. Declaring that
396-555: The public. It is now offers access print studio printmaking facilities for artists using traditional and digital processes. The facilities include dedicated learning space, art galleries, a shop, café and print archive. Alan Davie James Alan Davie (28 September 1920 – 5 April 2014) was a Scottish painter and musician. Davie was born in Grangemouth , Scotland in 1920, the son of Elizabeth (née Turnbull) and James William Davie, an art teacher and painter who exhibited at
418-403: The spiritual path is incompatible with planning ahead, he attempted to paint as automatically as possible, which was intended to bring forth elements of his unconscious . In this, he shared a vision with surrealist painters such as Miró, and he was also fascinated by the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung . Like Pollock, many of Davie's works were executed by standing above the painting, which
440-424: Was a member of the influential free improvisation group Iskra 1903 with Derek Bailey and trombonist Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Evan Parker , which led to a trio with drummer Paul Lytton which became one of the best-known and most widely travelled free-improvising groups of
462-570: Was appointed Honorary Professor at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, where he periodically conducts workshops and master classes. Guy's jazz work is characterised by free improvisation, using a range of unusual playing methods: bowed and pizzicato sounds beneath the bass's bridge; plucking the strings above the left hand; beating the strings with percussion instrument mallets; and "preparing"
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#1732786665437484-655: Was laid on the ground. He added layers of paint until sometimes the original painting had been covered over many times. Despite the speed at which he worked (he usually had several paintings on the go at once), however, he was adamant that his images are not pure abstraction, but all have significance as symbols. Championing the primitive, he saw the role of the artist as akin to that of the shaman , and remarked upon how disparate cultures have adopted common symbols in their visual languages. In addition to painting, whether on canvas or paper (he has stated that he prefers to work on paper), Davie produced several screenprints. He found
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