Obelisk with Odalisk

Ivor Davies is a Welsh artist, art historian, and activist. After studies at Cardiff and Swansea Colleges of Art in the 1950s, and later the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, Davies began a career in teaching alongside his art. Davies taught at the University of Wales and the University of Edinburgh, followed by Gwent College of Higher Education until retiring from teaching in 1988.   Davies' art is known for encompassing his interest in Welsh culture and poltics. For a number of years, he sponsored the Ivor Davies Award at the annual exhibition Y Lle Celf for an artwork that celebrated and conveyed the language and culture of Wales.    Davies has exhibited widely, with over 60 one-man shows. The largest exhibition was a retrosepctive of his work from the 1940s onward at the National Museum Cardiff in 2015. The exhibition was titled Ivor Davies: A Silent Explosion, in reference to his early work in the 1960s that used explosives as an expression of the destructive nature of society.