Alla Semenovna Davydova
Born June 27, 1946 in Leningrad. In 1969 she graduated from the Leningrad Higher School of Art and Industry named after V.I. Mukhina, Department of Textiles.
Works in collections
Her works are held at the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art in Moscow, the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the 'Raisa' Gallery in Erfurt, Germany, and in private collections in the United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Finland, and Scotland.
Exhibitions and auctions
1983 Textile Exhibition. Warsaw, Poland; 1984 Exhibition of Decorative and Applied Arts. Düsseldorf, Germany; 1987 Solo Exhibition. Central House of Artists. Moscow; 1988 Tapestry Exhibition at the International Symposium on Eastern Carpets. 'St. Petersburg' Hotel. St. Petersburg; 1990 White Nights. St. Petersburg; 1991 CONFIGURA I. Erfurt, Germany; 1991 Textiles of Moscow and St. Petersburg. 'Raisa' Gallery. Erfurt, Germany; 1992 ITNET-2. International Tapestry Exhibition. Washington; 1993 Golden Autumn. International Textile Exhibition. All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art. Moscow; 1993 White Nights. International Textile Symposium. St. Petersburg.
Author about himself
It's hard to say what exactly inspires me. A great many things. There is some process taking place in my soul, initially incomprehensible even to myself, which gradually takes shape into an image that I try to express in tapestry.
Critic
The first direct impression from Davydova’s works is their astonishing emotionality, temperament, and pictorial quality. Her tapestries seem to be 'painted' with a broad, fresh brushstroke. They retain the immediacy of depicting the real world, the richness of forms, and the freshness of colors, while at the same time being decorative and monumentally generalized. Often her works are resolved on contrasting, unexpected combinations of color masses and compositional planes, leaving a sense of drama and inner conflict. In Davydova’s works, it is as if two beginnings wrestle— the painter, aiming to represent the world in all its living beauty, be it still life, landscape, or human, and the tapestry artist, demanding a different imagery, a conventional language. Merging, or rather fusing into one pictorial structure, into the flesh of the tapestry, these qualities of Davydova's talent often give unpredictable, but always interesting, results.
Bibliography
R. Koval, 'Drama and Decorativeness in Art', Decorative Art magazine, No. 9, 1981, p. 35; '50 Years of LOSKH', Decorative Art magazine, No. 11, 1982, pp. 20, 22 (photo); 'Regional Tapestry Exhibition '85', Decorative Art magazine, No. 3, 1986, pp. 13, 14 (photo); 'INTENT-2 International tapestries - universal themes', Fiberarts magazine, 1992, p. 52 (in English); 'Russia as You Like it', Quilting magazine, January 1993, pp. 59, 60 (in English); 'Perestroika', Textilforum magazine, December 1991, p. 35, Germany (in German); Newsletter 'International Tapestry Network', 1992: No. 2, p. 15; No. 3, p. 27 (in English).
Works 9
