Alan Davie’s lithograph is an energetic compositions from a portfolio of 34 colour lithographs, which he produced between 1964 and 1965. The series title derives from the Matthieu Studio in Zurich, where he worked alongside a team of master printers to produce the works. In 1997, Davie described their working process in the production of these lithographs:
'They were intended as three images from five plates each, but as the proofing continued and accelerated over an intense period of some five days, ended up as an edition of thirty-four prints, each made from up to ten different plates, some printed upside down'.
From 1947 to 1949, Davie travelled extensively in Europe on an art scholarship. While studying Renaissance art in Italy he was also inspired by the Abstract Expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollock, whose work he saw at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Davie was immediately influenced by Pollock’s abstract style and his energetic, gestural approach to painting. As a result, Davie was one of the first European artists to respond enthusiastically to American Abstract Expressionism when he met Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and others in New York in 1956.
The influence of these encounters on Davie’s own style is evident in 'Zurich Improvisations'. He skilfully combines the contrasting styles of the time-consuming technique of lithography with expressive lines and splashes of paint. Davie’s own hand is expressed in the vitality of the composition. His working method, which was often improvisatory, was closely related to his experience as a jazz musician.