Alan Davie: Celtic Spirit II

In 2003, Professor Henry Walton, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and of International Medical Education, at the University of Edinburgh commissioned Alan Davie to work with Dovecot master weavers, David Cochrane and Douglas Grierson to produce a statement tapestry to hang in the atrium of the Chancellor’s Building of the new Medical School at Little France on the Old Dalkeith Road. Celtic Spirit I was selected from seven designs to be produced, and Celtic Spirit II – which was at one point the first choice for the tapestry – was produced as a rug instead. Douglas Grierson and David Cochrane found working with Davie particularly satisfying. He savoured the particular skills in the interpretation of his original gouache image as a rug. The Head Weaver Douglas Grierson observes “Collaboration is an overused term these days but in this case it is entirely appropriate.”