Warren Davis: Sixties Abstractions

Warren Davis Sixties Abstractions

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Warren Davis Sixties Abstractions

February 25 - April 2, 2022

Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com cover: Untitled, 1962, oil on panel, 30 x 22 inches (021365)

Warren Davis | Sixties Abstractions Warren Davis (1932-1974) developed his own visual language of abstraction, devoting himself to exploring the possibilities of non-objective painting in the wake of the abstract expressionist movement. Davis’ works were championed by major art figures of his day: by Elaine de Kooning, who wrote of the clarity and wholeness of his work, and by the MacArthur-winning critic and curator Dave Hickey, who praised Davis’ sense of confidence and control, alongside the remarkable degree of intensity in his art. Featuring works in oil paint, watercolor, collage, and other media, this exhibition highlights Warren Davis’ contributions to the legacy of American abstraction.

Davis built upon the energies of his progenitors to blaze his own trail forward in non-objective painting, conveying a variety of intuitive dialogues using the languages of color, gesture, and layered pigment. His canvases and works on paper brim with barely-contained energy, acting as records of an assortment of inner energies or dramas. Through the interplay of dense, opaque brushwork, thinly laid washes of color, and other areas of unmarked paper or canvas, Davis also often utilized black as an unexpected structural or unifying element.

Born in Amarillo, TX in 1942, Warren Davis studied at the University of Texas and at Oklahoma State University.

Beginning in 1962, he lived and worked in New York City, where he formed close friendships with Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson and Mark Rothko and achieved both critical and commercial success. Relocating to Tesuque, New Mexico in 1971, he continued to paint until his untimely passing at the age of 42 in 1974.

Davis’ works are included in notable public and private collections including the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; and the Amarillo Museum of Art, which held a posthumous retrospective including more than one hundred of the artist’s paintings in 1975. For the retrospective exhibition catalogue, Elaine de Kooning wrote that Davis “evolved a large body of work – a definite statement of a profound personal vision. Involved with values of contemplation and meditation, his work, for me, is a haven, exuding a sense of promise – of well-being, of security, of adventure, of peace, of hope.”

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Untitled, 1963 ink, charcoal, and crayon on paper, 24 x 18 inches framed: 31.88 x 26 inches 021538

Untitled Blues, 1962 watercolor and ink on paper, 30 x 22.5 inches framed: 38.75 x 31.75 inches 015731

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Untitled, 1962 watercolor on paper, 30 x 21.88 inches framed: 35.25 x 27.5 inches 021359

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Untitled (CCD340), 1974 acrylic on canvas, 42 x 62 inches 021367 7

Untitled, 1960 watercolor on paper, 18.25 x 15 inches framed: 25.75 x 22.5 inches 021356

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Untitled, 1959 ink, charcoal, and crayon on paper, 13.75 x 15.75 inches framed: 17.5 x 20 inches 021363 9

Untitled (Pink and Green), 1970 acrylic on paper, 22.5 x 30 inches framed: 31 x 38.25 inches 021354

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Untitled, 1960 watercolor and collage on paper, 7.63 x 5.88 inches framed: 15.25 x 13.25 inches 021364

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Untitled, 1964 watercolor and ink on paper, 29.5 x 23.38 inches framed: 35.25 x 27.25 inches 021357

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Untitled, 1960 oil on canvas, 37 x 40 inches 015733

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Untitled, 1963 watercolor and ink on paper, 23.75 x 17.75 inches framed: 29.25 x 23.25 inches 021355 16

Untitled, 1963 oil and ink on paper, 24 x 18.5 inches framed: 35 x 29.5 inches 021358 17

Untitled, 1962 watercolor on paper, 30 x 21.88 inches framed: 35.25 x 27.25 inches 021361 18

Untitled, 1962 watercolor and ink on paper, 30 x 22 inches framed: 38.5 x 30.25 inches 016694 19

Chartreuse Circles, 1971-72 sprayed acrylic on paper, 24 x 31 inches framed: 24 x 32 inches 015729 20

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Untitled, 1973 acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 inches framed: 38.75 x 30.75 inches 015730 22

Untitled, 1962 watercolor on paper, 30 x 21.75 inches framed: 35.25 x 27.25 inches 021360 23

Untitled (WD202), 1965 acrylic on canvas, 92 x 71.75 inches 015725

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Untitled, 1961 oil on panel, 30 x 22 inches framed: 31.25 x 23.25 inches 021366

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"Warren Davis was only twenty-six years old when I first met him and saw his work in 1957 on a visit to Amarillo.

I was surprised at the time by the complexity and maturity of his imagery and his extended awareness of the advanced concepts of the abstract painting of the period....

Throughout the years since then, Davis' work has always been remarkably consistent, expressing a sense of wholeness and clarity, of tension within tranquility -- no loose ends, no raw colors, no indecisiveness. His development has been a matter of amplifying and refining, of constructing a formal architecture of shifting pattersn of color to create his great shimmering walls of light. In his small paintings on paper, he mainted his characteristic, stunning panoramic scale; in his huge canvases, a radiant intimacy of surface.

"A meticulous and dedicated craftsman painting steadily and intensely through the years until his tragic demise in 1974, he evolved a large body of work -- a definite statement of a profound personal vision. Involved with values of contemplation and meditation, his work, for me, is a haven exuding a sense of promise -- of well being, of security, of adventure, of peace, of hope. All abstract art is self-portraiture. When I bring Warren's face to mind, it's always smiling -- as his work smiles."

Elaine de Kooning Forward for the Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue At the Amarillo Museum of Art, 1975

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“....Warren Davis' gestures are deployed evenly over [each] canvas, and the intensity is controlled with a confidence and facility which gives the paintings an unnerving sense of spontaneous factuality. They seem to say, ‘This is what I did today—isn’t it beautiful?’ Their nature is analogous to dance; paintings not built, but performed. They move from first to last like a performance frozen but without the vanity and angst of 'action painting.'

In nearly all the paintings after 1968, there is a serenity of a mature painter making mature work; there is speed, precision, and authority in every mark on the canvas, but what is being expressed is not mere 'personality.' It is an activity in which the paint and the canvas and the painter are interacting so closely and naturally that there are no distinctions.... "[By looking at Davis' works] for a while, you discover that each individual painting does continue to happen.

Because, finally, regardless of their initial voluptuous impact, these are not 'exhibition paintings' to be experienced at a glance. They are paintings to live around, to walk by and notice, to see in the morning and in the evening, to watch the light change on, to feel your own mood play across, to be aware of while you are reading the paper. They were made by a man who made paintings every day and he made them to be lived with every day. They keep on changing quietly but inexhaustibly.... There is very little art made to dignify life and enrich and 'humanize' life as it happens, as we walk, run, or stumble through it, one day after another."

Dave Hickey Introductory Essay for the Retrospective Exhibition Catalogue At the Amarillo Museum of Art, 1975

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Railyard Arts District | 1613 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 | 505.988.3250 www.lewallengalleries.com | contact@lewallengalleries.com © 2022 LewAllen Contemporary, LLC 30 Artwork © Estate of Warren Davis