Dale Brockman Davis
Dale Brockman Davis (b. 1945, Tuskegee, AL) is an artist, teacher, community arts activist and curator. Davis was co-founder/director of Brockman Gallery with his brother Alonzo Davis. Davis creates multimedia artworks that explore the use of color, texture and form to evoke cultural and material histories. These works range from freestanding ceramic objects, to assemblages on a vertical plane. Interested in thinking through various facets of Black culture, Davis has made works that directly reference both African artistic traditions, such as masks, and his personal experiences.
Davis received a BFA in ceramics from USC in 1969. Select exhibitions include Eleven from California, Studio Museum in Harlem, NY (1972); Panorama of Black Artists, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA (1972); Collage and Assemblage, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (1975); Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA (1982); Museum of African American Art, Santa Monica, CA (1983); Watts: Art and Social Change in Los Angeles, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI (2003); L.A. Object and David Hammons Body Prints, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY (2006); Distinctly Los Angeles: An African American Perspective, M. Hanks Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, (2009); and Watts Towers, Los Angeles, CA (2009). Davis has also been featured in the landmark exhibition Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; and Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA (2012 - 2013). His work is in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Dale Brockman Davis is represented by parrasch heijnen.
Select Works
Select Exhibitions
Panorama of Black Artist, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1972
3 Assemblage Interpretations: Dale Davis, Marie Johnson, and Noah Purifoy, Brockman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1972
Select Press
2021
Cooks, Bridget and Tewes, Amanda. “Dale Brockman Davis: Artist, Educator, and Gallerist.” Getty Trust Oral History Project, Berkeley Library Digital Collections, 2021.
2020
Miller, M.H. “The Artists.” New York Times T-Magazine, April 13, 2020.
2015
Davis, Dale Brockman. “Open Access to History: The Brockman Gallery Archive.” Medium, April 7, 2015.
Artbound Staff Articles. “Artist and Gallerist Dale Brockman Davis Reflects on the Watts Uprising.” Departures on KCET, August 11, 2015.
2006
Lindsay, Jeanette, dir. Leimert Park: The Story of a Village in South Central Los Angeles, 2006. DVD, 88 min.
1992
Harris, P. J. "Leimert Park Village." American Visions 7, no. 3 (June–July 1992): 26.
1981
"Black Artists of Los Angeles: Conversations with Five Black Artists." Interview by Stanley Wilson. Studio Potter 9, no. 2 (June 1981): 16.