Dale Brockman Davis: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Dale Brockman Davis built a practice where assemblage sculpture, ceramics and jazz devotion meet — and built, with his brother Alonzo, the Brockman Gallery that made Leimert Park a center of Black art in Los Angeles from 1967 onward. This mix maps the LA assemblage lineage he came out of, the jazz world he translated into objects, and the artists his gallery launched.

The Kynda mix for Dale Brockman Davis

• Key Influence · Watts Riot by Noah Purifoy (1966). Purifoy's salvage sculptures, made from debris gathered after the 1965 Watts uprising and shown in the landmark '66 Signs of Neon' exhibition, established assemblage as the defining Black Los Angeles idiom. Davis came of age as an artist in that immediate aftermath, working in found and charred material, and the Brockman Gallery he co-founded two years later helped institutionalize the practice Purifoy and his circle had pioneered in South LA.','
• Influencia Obscura · Enamel on copper panels by Curtis Tann (1950). Tann, who came to Los Angeles in the 1940s and worked in enamel and craft media alongside Betye Saar in a small decorative-arts partnership, is almost unknown outside LA art history. He was a connective figure in the city's prewar-into-postwar Black art community, teaching and encouraging younger artists. His craft-based, materially modest practice anticipates Davis's fusion of fine art with ceramics and handwork.','
• Local Roots · Watts Towers by Sabato 'Simon' Rodia (1954). Rodia's hand-built spires of steel, mortar, bottle glass and broken tile in Watts became the founding monument of Los Angeles assemblage, and the Watts Towers Arts Center that grew around them trained and employed Black LA artists including Purifoy and John Outterbridge. Davis's community-rooted, salvage-built sensibility descends directly from this South LA tradition of making monuments from discards.','
• Beyond the Medium · The Giant Is Awakened by Horace Tapscott (1969). Tapscott's Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and his Union of God's Musicians and Artists Ascension made Leimert Park and South LA a hub of self-organized Black creative work in exactly the years Brockman Gallery opened; the two scenes overlapped in audience and ethos. Davis's sculpture takes jazz as its explicit subject, and Tapscott's model of community-run art is the sound of the world Davis operated in.','
• Peer · The Liberation of Aunt Jemima by Betye Saar (1972). Saar was the other central figure of LA assemblage, loading racist collectibles and family photographs into boxes that detonate American iconography. She showed in the same artist-run Los Angeles circuit as Brockman Gallery during the late 1960s and 70s and emerged from the same post-Watts moment. Her practice of redeeming cast-off objects as carriers of Black memory is the closest sibling to Davis's own.','
• From the Canon · Brockman Gallery, Leimert Park by Dale Brockman Davis (1967). Founded with his brother Alonzo on Degnan Boulevard, Brockman Gallery ran for roughly two decades as the most important showcase for African American artists in Los Angeles, exhibiting Hammons, Saar, Outterbridge, Charles White and dozens more, and spawning Brockman Gallery Productions for public art and community programs. Understood as Davis's largest work, it explains everything else in his career.','
• Key Collaborator · Blanket Series by Alonzo Davis (1985). Alonzo Davis co-founded Brockman Gallery with his brother Dale in 1967 and shared every decision of its two decades, from exhibition programming to the public murals and festivals of Brockman Gallery Productions. His own later Blanket Series — bamboo, pigment and woven forms evoking Pan-African and Pacific sources — shows the sensibility that ran alongside Dale's throughout their partnership.','
• Legacy · Pickett's Charge by Mark Bradford (2017). Bradford grew up in South Los Angeles and worked in his mother's Leimert Park hair salon, the neighborhood Brockman Gallery had anchored for two decades; his paintings are built from scavenged street paper, posters and endpapers in the LA salvage tradition. He has also mirrored Davis's institution-building with Art + Practice, a Leimert Park space combining exhibitions with social services for local youth.','

What influenced Dale Brockman Davis

• F. Carlton Ball. Davis studied with ceramist F. Carlton Ball. “There he studied with noted ceramist F. Carlton Ball .” (Wikipedia)
• A Love Supreme by John Coltrane (1965). A Love Supreme (John Coltrane) — culture for Dale Brockman Davis (musicbrainz.org)
• Black Music by Amiri Baraka (1967). Black Music (Amiri Baraka) — culture for Dale Brockman Davis (openlibrary.org)
• Glazed stoneware weed pots by Doyle Lane (1965). Glazed stoneware weed pots (Doyle Lane) — ghost for Dale Brockman Davis
• Harvest Talk by Charles White (1953). Harvest Talk (Charles White) — titan for Dale Brockman Davis
• Lynch Fragments by Melvin Edwards (1963). Lynch Fragments (Melvin Edwards) — titan for Dale Brockman Davis
• The Giant Is Awakened by Horace Tapscott (1969). The Giant Is Awakened (Horace Tapscott) — culture for Dale Brockman Davis
• Watts Riot by Noah Purifoy (1966). Watts Riot (Noah Purifoy) — titan for Dale Brockman Davis
• Enamel on copper panels by Curtis Tann (1950). Enamel on copper panels (Curtis Tann) — ghost for Dale Brockman Davis

Peers and kindred spirits

• Alonzo Davis. The brothers jointly founded and operated Brockman Gallery. (also via Blanket Series) “Civil rights protests were forming across the nation and the Davis brothers took an active role, participating in the James Meredith March dubbed the “March Against Fear”” (parrasch heijnen)
• Dorsey High School. Davis taught art at Dorsey High School. “Davis worked as an art teacher and chairman of the art department at Dorsey High School .” (Wikipedia)
• Brockman Gallery. Davis co-founded Brockman Gallery. “Davis and his brother Alonzo Davis founded and operated Brockman Gallery from 1967 to 1990.” (Wikipedia)
• David Hammons. Davis lists an exhibition with Hammons in his artist résumé. “LA Object with David Hammons • Roberts & Tilton Gallery • Los Angeles” (Dale B. Davis / artist)
• Case in Point by John Outterbridge (1970). Case in Point (John Outterbridge) — peer for Dale Brockman Davis “including Judy Baca, Romare Bearden, Dale Brockman Davis, David Hammons, Mildred Howard, Suzanne Jackson, Doyle Lane, Samella Lewis, Kerry James Marshall, Senga Nengudi, John Outterbridge, Noah Purifoy, Betye Saar” (parrasch heijnen)
• Suzanne Jackson. The gallery names Davis and Jackson among artists included in the same exhibition. “including Judy Baca, Romare Bearden, Dale Brockman Davis, David Hammons, Mildred Howard, Suzanne Jackson, Doyle Lane, Samella Lewis” (parrasch heijnen)
• Blanket Series by Alonzo Davis (1985). Blanket Series (Alonzo Davis) — collaborator for Dale Brockman Davis “He is known for co-founding the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles with his brother Dale Brockman Davis.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Liberation of Aunt Jemima by Betye Saar (1972). The Liberation of Aunt Jemima (Betye Saar) — peer for Dale Brockman Davis
• Watts Towers by Sabato 'Simon' Rodia (1954). Watts Towers (Sabato 'Simon' Rodia) — geography for Dale Brockman Davis
• Injustice Case by David Hammons (1970). Injustice Case (David Hammons) — peer for Dale Brockman Davis
• Spiral Garden by Camille Billops (1972). Spiral Garden (Camille Billops) — collaborator for Dale Brockman Davis
• Gallery 32 exhibitions by Suzanne Jackson (1968). Gallery 32 exhibitions (Suzanne Jackson) — geography for Dale Brockman Davis
• One Nation Under God by Timothy Washington (1970). One Nation Under God (Timothy Washington) — geography for Dale Brockman Davis
• Los Angeles murals of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival by Judith Baca (1984). Los Angeles murals of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival (Judith Baca) — collaborator for Dale Brockman Davis

Who Dale Brockman Davis influenced

• The Eastside of South Central Los Angeles Hieroglyph Prototype Architecture by Lauren Halsey (2022). The Eastside of South Central Los Angeles Hieroglyph Prototype Architecture (Lauren Halsey) — legacy for Dale Brockman Davis
• Pickett's Charge by Mark Bradford (2017). Pickett's Charge (Mark Bradford) — legacy for Dale Brockman Davis