Ken Davies (1925-2017)
Savage Comp V
1947
Gouache on illustration board
B 379 x 510
I 328 x 459 (12.9” x 18.1”)

Stated by auction house as coming from the artist’s estate. Davies was still a student when this and the following work were executed.

A patently surrealist scene with Davies employing his inventive and masterful juxtapositions, in this case well suited to his surrealist intentions. What appears to be a light reflector in the background is reflecting a fanciful pueblo village as other figures interact with their environment and, to a lesser degree, each other.

Image measurements are as per artist’s markings. This work was previously cropped to roughly the same format as the following work.


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Ken Davies (1925-2017)
Title unknown (see below)
1948
Gouache on illustration board
B 379 x 435
I 310 x 380 (12.2” x 15.0”)

Stated by auction house as coming from the artist’s estate. Davies was still a student when this and the previous work were executed.

The auctrion house, apparently relaying information from Davies estate, notes this composition as a “Sargasso Sea” illustration from the “Savage Comp” series, thus placing it in the same series as the previous composition. More information on the aforementioned series needs to be found. Perhaps illustrations for a literary collaboration.

With only allusions to figuration this composition relies more heavily on non-figurative surrealist elements such as the abandoned ship and anthropomorphic sails/netting as well as the extruded grotesque “figure” at lower left. Enigmatic, and successfully so.


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Ken Davies (1925-2017)
Patriotic Doorstop
ND (See below)
Oil on canvas
S & C 350 x 305 (13.8” x 12.0”)

A nice, presumably later, trompe l’oeil painting by Davies. Perhaps from the early 1990s.

 

INSERT Accompanying the painting is the original doorstop used as a model for the painting, image following.