Ivor Davies (artist)

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Ivor Davies MBE
BornNovember 1935
Treharris, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, Wales
NationalityWelsh
Education Cardiff College of Art
Swansea College of Art
University of Lausanne
University of Edinburgh
Known forPainting / Multi-media / Conceptual / Mosaic
Awards Fine Art Gold Medal winner, National Eisteddfod of Wales
MBE
Vice-President of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art
Elected The Welsh Group [1]
Royal Cambrian Academy

Ivor Davies, MBE (born November 1935) is a Welsh artist. He currently lives and works in Penarth, and largely works using the Welsh language. [2]

As a boy Davies went to Penarth County School. He studied at Cardiff College of Art and Swansea College of Art between 1952 and 1957, and then from 1959 to 1961 studied at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He then began teaching at the University of Wales before moving on to the University of Edinburgh, where he also completed a PhD on the Russian avant-garde. [3] Davies finally retired from teaching at the Gwent College of Higher Education in 1988. [2] [4] [5]

He was elected vice-president of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art in 1995 [4] and is a member of The Welsh Group. [6] He was made an MBE in the 2007 New Year Honours list. [7] At the 2002 National Eisteddfod of Wales he won the Gold Medal for Fine Art. [8] [9] [1]

Artwork

Davies is passionate about the culture, language and politics of Wales, which inspire his artwork. For a number of years he has sponsored the Ivor Davies Award at Y Lle Celf (Art Space in Welsh), at the National Eisteddfod of Wales, for an artwork "that conveys the spirit of activism in the struggle for language, culture and politics in Wales". [10]

Davies' early works in the 1960s used explosives as an expression of society's destructive nature. Davies took part in the Destruction in Art Symposium in London in 1966. [2] [4] [5] More recent work has included painting, installations; he has also designed and installed a mosaic of Saint David at Westminster Cathedral. [11] [12]

A major retrospective exhibition of his work from the 1940s onwards, Ivor Davies: Silent Explosion, opened at National Museum Cardiff in 2015. This was the largest exhibition dedicated to the work of a single contemporary artist ever held in Wales. [13]

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Welsh Group – Ivor Davies". thewelshgroup-art.com. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 "Ivor Davies". BBC. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  3. ↑ Davies, Ivor (1975). "Certain aspects of art and theory in Russia from 1905 to 1924 in their relationship to the development of avant-garde art and ideas in the West".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. 1 2 3 "Ivor Davies". Rcaconwy.org. Archived from the original on 5 February 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  5. 1 2 "Byd o Liw". S4C. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  6. ↑ "Ivor Davies". The Welsh Group . 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
  7. ↑ "Knights Bachelor" (PDF). BBC News. 28 December 2006. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  8. ↑ "Ivor Davies to open Y Lle Celf at the Vale of Glamorgan Eisteddfod | The National Eisteddfod of Wales". Eisteddfod.org.uk. 11 August 2012. Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  9. ↑ "UK | Eisteddfod art turns political". BBC News. 4 August 2002. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  10. ↑ "Visual Arts Exhibition, Y Lle Celf at Blaenau Gwent" (PDF). 15 October 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2011. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  11. ↑ Germaine Greer (19 September 2010). "Catholic art was once the domain of Titian. Now, we get Susan Boyle | Art and design". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  12. ↑ "CatholicHerald.co.uk » Pope to bless mosaic with holy water from Wales". catholicherald.co.uk. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  13. ↑ "Ivor Daves: Silent Explosion At National Museum Cardiff", CCQ, 13 November 2015, archived from the original on 16 November 2015, retrieved 13 November 2015
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