Gerald Davis

One of Ireland's leading semi-abstract artists, Gerald Davis was born in Dublin in 1938. Best known for his sensuously coloured landscapes, Davis most often focused on the relation of the human body to its landscape surroundings, drawing the viewer into a marriage between landscape and mortality. Davis had his first one-man show in 1962 at the age of 24 and throughout the course of his career, had over 150 solo shows. His work was also shown in major group exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Oireachtas, Watercolour Society of Ireland and Aer Rianta to name but a few. In 1977 he was awarded the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal by the Arts Council and he represented Ireland abroad on many occasions. He is represented in the Irish Self Portrait and Watercolour Collections in Limerick University and in this Gallery. He opened his own gallery in 1970 on Capel Street, Dublin, where he pioneered the work of young Irish artists and craft workers. Today, the Davis Gallery is the longest running commercial gallery of contemporary Irish art in Dublin. Davis also started his own record company, LIVIA Records in the late 1970s and produced albums by Ireland's most distinguished musicians, actors and poets. He travelled extensively to Australia, the U.S. and Europe, where he masqueraded as James Joyce's 'Leopold Bloom', the main character from Ulysses, and gave lectures on Irish Art and Literature, focusing specifically on the work of Joyce and Beckett. He wrote regularly for Ireland's leading national newspapers and was also a regular broadcaster on Irish radio and television. He died on the 18th June 2005.