Here is a wonderful three-part interview with Errol
about his life as a sculptor, conducted by Mr Peter Stanbury, OAM, PhD,
on 14th May 1998 in Errol's Sydney home. The interview was recoded on
cassette tape, and was intended to be followed up by a final fourth part.
Thank you very much to Mr Stanbury for his kind permission to reproduce
the interview here.
Interview Part 1, Duration: 28 minutes
The various
media Errol has worked in and his current preference for metal.
Early
life and education. Errol worked in wood, even as a small child.
An early memory is making a railway engine out of metal and wood. Also
attracted by the forms of fish and birds.
Gained
a place at the University of Sydney, where he studied engineering.
Errol
discusses his early fascination with mathematical shapes and curves.
Gradated
and became Assistant Engineer at a manufacturing company.
Life
and work in London. Went to England in 1950, worked as an engineer,
stayed for five years.
Exciting
times as London prepared for the Festival of Britain on the South Bank
in 1951.
Encountered
a lot of sculpture there, eg. Henry Moore, Barabara Hepworth, Lynn Chadwick.
Sculpture gardens in Battersea Park and Holland Park.
Early
sculptures. As a newlywed, lived in a two-room flat in Notting Hill
Gate, Kensington, where he made small sculptures out of wax, clay and
plaster. Including portrait work of his pregnant wife, and later, his
newborn son, works which Errol would never part with.
Where
Errol worked, they had a workshop where they made copper and aluminium
components - Errol was permitted to use the metal scraps and the tools.
One small
copper work (originally called Triangle & Circle, but now
Quartette) was entered into the 1953 exhibition 'Artists
From the Commonwealth' and was received well.
Joined
sculpture course at Regent Street Polytechnic, studied wood carving.
An early
work, a ribbon of welded aluminium fashioned into a sculpture, inspired
by Errol's love of mathematical shapes, was sold in London. Its design
inspired many later sculptures, known as the Southern Cross
series.
Returned
to Australia in 1955, worked as an engineer.
Modelmaking.
Bought a block of land in Turramurra and made a model of the house he
had designed for it. As no one else was doing that at the time, that
model led to a three-decade career in architectural scale modelmaking.
Quickly gained clients and trained others to make models as well.
Made
models of most of Sydney's buildings in the 1960s. Also models of Canberra's
buildings for the National Capital Development Commission (eg. the National
Library of Australia). Relief maps. Trains for South African Railways,
Clyde Engineering and Commonwealth Engineering. Tug boats. Planes.
In between
models, Errol was still sculpting at this time, and he still has those
small works. Working in plastics and driftwood.
Developed
a technique for relief maps whereby only two sheets of plywood/plastic
were required, with alternate contours being cut out of each sheet.
Inspired
by the contours of the relief maps, Errol started to develop sculptures
using this technique, which were cast in bronze [and in aluminium; and
which also later inspired his laser-cut stainless steel works].
Built
a factory in Whiting Street, Artarmon, where most of the models were
made by his firm, Errol B. Davis and Associates.
Interview Part 2, Duration: 28 minutes
Model
of Ancient Rome for the Australian National University (1976).
Model
of Macquarie University's campus.
Contour
maps eg. south-western Tasmania for the Hydro-Electric Commission.
Model
of Sydney CBD (1960s).
Sculptures
inspired by curves in nature, eg. by fruit, fish, birds.
Worked
in metal, wood, stone in the 1960s and 1970s.
How building
a business is like making a sculpture; in fact, how all creativity is
like a piece of sculpture.
Bronze
contour sculptures (late 1970s - early 1980s).
Stainless
steel sculptures with 'exploded' contours (1980s).
CNC laser
cutting technique for stainless steel sculptures.
TIG welding
technique.
Kakadu
and Jabiru series of stainless steel works.
Late
1970s - beaten copper and silver jewellery.
1970s
- Art Protis wool tapestries.
1980s
- the use of new types of epoxy resins, "lyrical, flowing work"
(abstract forms influenced by leaves and the female form).
Colours
of metal - copper alloys, stainless steel, nickel, bronze.
Small-medium
sized bronze shell-form sculptures.
'Nona'
- called so because it can stand on a table in nine different positions.
Mid-late
1990s - miniature human forms made from plastic resin, constructed on
a metal armature (these were later cast in bronze editions around 1999-2000
in time for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games).
Back
in the 1970s, worked on similar miniature figurines, but using solder
rather than plastic.
Interview Part 3, Duration: 23 minutes
1940s,
wartime, teenage years.
Errol
shows Peter his box containing models of war ships and tanks. The ships
were carved from wood, complete with guns, cranes, rigging, portholes
and crew. There were no kits in those days so Errol made these by referring
to published plans in library books like "Janes Fighting Ships".
Errol made hundreds of them in his teenage years. They included the
HMAS Canberra, the HMAS Australia, the HMAS Melbourne, the HMS Ark Royal
and the HMS Furious (British aircraft carriers), and the HMS Hood (British
battlecruiser).
de Havilland
Express four-engined biplane - rigging and cables were made from split
bamboo, as thin as very fine fuse-wire, carefully attached with Tarzan's
Grip.
Handley
Page Halifax, British four-engined bomber, camouflaged.
A series
of army guns, a tank, a couple of searchlights - thumbnail sized, with
personnel about 1cm high, carved from wood.
Note:
the silver Catalina flying boat is a model purchased by Errol, they
were very common sight & sound in Rose Bay at the time
Errol's
father made him very fine knives from ground & sharpened hacksaw
blades, set into wooden handles.
Errol's
father did an apprenticeship in boot & shoe making and worked as
a manufacturer's agent. He used public transport as he didn't own a
car. He was in both wars.
Another
box contains more planes and warships.
As there
was no radar until the very end of WWII, the Volunteer Air Observer
Corps was formed, with members trained to recognise enemy aircraft.
It was organised by Sydney Consolidated Press, and Errol was asked to
join and make scale models. Artist Lloyd Rees was also involved. They
were given the material to make models of every aircraft. One of the
VAOC outposts was the penthouse of the Astor Flats in Macquarie Street,
Sydney, where they were hung from the ceiling. People were taught there
how to recognise enemy aircraft. Towards the end of the war, plastic
and metal models became available. The models were 172nd scale (6 feet
to the inch) so a fighter plane model was about 6 inches long and a
bomber was about a foot.
Errol
shows Peter a tiny four-engined aircraft (about 3cm long) that he'd
originally mounted on a small piece of carved perspex that he also shows
him separately. Subsequently, that tiny mount became a sculpture in
itself, sans the aircraft.
Errol
describes another mount, made of wood, which was slightly bigger (and
which he still has). He took it to England and was inspired to make
a larger wooden version, about 150-200mm, which he had cast in aluminium
by Fitzroy Iron Foundry, and incorporated some cut perspex. Peter comments
that its shape is reminiscent of the 1950s 'Festival of Britain type
of shape'.
Errol's
very first pure sculpture was carved out of wood, finished and painted
to look like aluminium. Like a sculpted mushroom shape, it was small
enough that two or three of such would fit into one's hand. It was made
before he went to England and Errol still has it, though it wasn't to
hand to show Peter at the time. It remains unnamed. Later on he developed
it into a larger scale. If made in a much larger scale in coloured plastic,
it could even have been used as a children's slippery dip.
Errol
used to carve animals, birds and fish out of acrylic toothbrush handles.
The originals don't exist anymore, but some of the animals were later
cast in silver using the lost wax (or in this case, 'lost toothbrush
handle') process, and are on a chain belonging to his wife.
Note:
Errol's brother later recalled how Errol would also carve flowers out
of toothbrush handles to give to his girlfriends when he was a teenager.
Errol
went to England on the SS Strathnaver in 1950. Peter recalls that he
came to Australia on the same ship in 1952.
Errol
returned to Australia on the SS Orcades in 1951 after his father died
in April, a four-week trip.
To return
to England in 1952, Errol got a job as 3rd cook on the Orontes, a six-week
trip.
Peter
recalls how Notting Hill Gate became known in those days as "Kangaroo
Valley" as there were so many Australians there.
Here is a radio interview with Errol about his 1989
exhibition at the Holdsworth Galleries, Woollahra (Sydney) which
was held from 21st Oct - 8th Nov 1989. The interviewer is Sophia Hendel,
who presented the Arts programme at the time, on Eastside Radio 89.7FM
in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.
They discuss two sculptures, "Poetic Fragment" (cast stainless
steel); and a half-size replica of Errol's 4-metre welded stainless steel
work, "Kakadu Flight", which won the Ueno Royal Museum Award
at the 6th Henry Moore Grand Prize Exhibition in Hakone, Japan in 1989.
The Award required the original to remain on permanent display at the
Open-Air Sculpture Museum in Utsukushi-ga-hara, Japan.
They discuss the sculptural process and how it relates to both mathematics
and nature, through contours which naturally occur, eg. in landscapes
and clouds.
Thank you to 89.7 Eastside FM (eastsidefm.org)
for copyright permission to upload this recording.
Thank you also to Mrs Gisella Scheinberg, proprietor of the Holdsworth
Galleries who firstly, had the foresight to donate the gallery's entire
manuscript collection to the National Library of Australia when the Holdsworth
Galleries closed; and who secondly, gave me her kind permission to research
and copy parts of the collection relating to Errol's exhibitions, one
of which was this original cassette recording, which had been provided
to her by Sophia Hendel.
This beautiful film, entitled "A Momentary Impression
- the Work of Errol Davis" was recorded on Super 8 film on 6th
January 1992 by April Glaser-Hinder. The audio is the Aria from
J.S. Bach's Suite in D major, played by Trudy Davis.
Modelmakers Errol B Davis and Alan Wilson, interviewed on Channel
Ten's 'Good Morning Sydney' programme by Maureen Duvall and Jo
Hasham regarding the second "Australian Modelmakers' Fair",
held at the Sydney Showgrounds in the Royal Hall of Industries in the
1980s.
Errol B Davis interviewed for ABC TV's 'Weekend Magazine' in
1981. The segment was called 'The Creative Urge'.
Errol B Davis, interviewed by Edith Bliss for 'Simon Townsend's
Wonderworld', an afternoon children's programme on Channel Ten
in the mid 1980s. This interview was filmed in September 1984, as part
of it was filmed at Parkers Garden Centre in Turramurra, where Errol's
work was on display at that time; so it would have gone to air about that
time, or shortly after.
Errol Davis and other sculptors are interviewed about the Macquarie
University Sculpture Park on the ABC's 'Review' programme, 12th
July 1993.
This video was made by Gina Park, Gallery Intern at Macquarie
University Art Gallery, in 2013. The Sculpture Park's Curator,
Leonard Janiszewski, talks about the Park and various sculptures including
three of Errol's. Music composed by Michael Pasterfield. Cameraman Iain
Brew.
