Lecturer, Author and former Art Dealer

From the early 1970's Gerald Davison has been travelling widely in South East Asia with long periods of time spent in Japan, China and the Philippines. In the 1990's he also lectured aboard the adventure vessel, MV Caledonian Star which was then based in Hong Kong and Nanjing. As well as lecturing about China's culture, history and art he led pioneering land trips of the Chinese mainland.

Retiring from corporate life in 1998 (see below) he returned to dealing in art with an antique gallery near his home in Somerset. This meant spending time each year in China purchasing early works of art, mainly from the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE) through to the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE). The gallery was closed in 2007 to make more time for lecturing, travel and writing about Asian art.

Gerald has been a member of the Oriental Ceramic Society (OCS), London since the early 70's and in 2002 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA). He also became a lecturer for the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) in 2004. In 2005 he completed an extensive, six week lecture tour of Eastern and Southern Australia for their sister organisation, AADFAS. .Apart from lecturing all over the UK, 2010 will find him again lecturing in Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Manila, Borneo, Brunei and Singapore on board the MV Discovery and China, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore on board Cunard's MV Queen Victoria. Gerald will also be at Oxford in July as a guest lecturer taking part in the 'Art in Action' event that attracts 27,000 people over 4 days.

A native of London, England, Gerald Davison was born in 1943. His early fascination with Asian art and culture was as a result of growing up close to that part of London that houses many of the city's finest museums. As a boy, frequent visits to both the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Science Museum opposite, gave him a dual passion and intellectual curiosity for all forms of the decorative arts of Asia as well as all things mechanical.

It is worth noting that when the Victoria & Albert Museum was originally founded in 1852 as the 'Museum of Manufactures', science was then seen as just another branch of the arts. Located originally at Marlborough House, it became the 'Victoria & South Kensington Museum' when it moved to its present site in the Brompton Road in 1857 and finally acquired its current name in 1899. It was a few years later in 1909 that the separate Science Museum in Exhibition Road was developed, separating the concept of science and engineering as an art form.

Inspired by the exhibits in these South Kensington museums, these two parallel interests have endured throughout Gerald's life. They largely shaped his diverse business career from the international automotive industry to dealing in, collecting, lecturing and writing about Asian art and more specifically Chinese ceramics.

From Art Dealer to Author

In the early 1960's, handling most forms of Chinese Art as a young London dealer in the Portobello Road and later Camden Passage, he quickly realised that it was too broad a subject for him to acquire sufficient expertise and made the decision to specialise in his first love - ceramics. At the same time he was fortunate to be helped and encouraged by the legendary, late Margaret Medley, then curator of the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art which formed part of The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. He retained a long and close relationship with the foundation until its demise in 2007. Its superb, world-class collection of Chinese ceramics are now being housed to great effect in a new purpose made gallery at the British Museum.

Among other things, Gerald found the marks that appeared on some Chinese antique pots fascinating. Apart from the widely documented small number of Imperial reign marks, little interest was shown at that time in the meaning of these diverse marks and their purpose. Many dealers and collectors seemed content to handle or own objects with markings but without necessarily having a clear understanding of their meaning. Most publications on Chinese art available then devoted very little space, if any, to the question of marks and usually included only a small selection of the better known 'hall' marks and the more common reign marks. Even Medley, in her own books had repeatedly highlighted the need for research and publication into this particular aspect of Chinese ceramic history.

Realising then that a small but important vacuum existed Gerald gradually began to collect and research information on these marks from many sources. By the late 1980's, while running a publishing business, he felt he had enough material to produce a small format, hard-bound guide to help dealers and collectors identify some of the more unusual marks. This book sold out very quickly and was followed by 2 further reprinted editions selling a final total of 8,000 copies.

The success of this first book encouraged Gerald to focus even more effort on collecting examples of marks from museums and collectors worldwide. In turn this led to the publication in 1994 of the much larger and very widely acclaimed, 'Handbook of Marks on Chinese Ceramics' covering as it does over 1800 different marks in both kaishu and zhuanshu script. This book became one of the standard works on the subject and is still the only publication to exhaustively cover this aspect of Chinese ceramic history. His new book, due for publication in early 2010, is the result of eight years of further research and will detail some 3400 marks in both forms of script.

From Engineer to International Businessman

While all this was happening in the field of the decorative arts, Gerald had continued to pursue his other passion - mechanical engineering. After training as an automotive engineer and a spell racing in motor sport, 1965 saw him join the international division of the Chrysler Motor Corporation, then head-quartered in Geneva. This was his first experience of dealing with global markets.

In 1968 he had the opportunity to join the Honda Motor Company as a young Manager at a time when the company was just becoming commercially established in Europe. He had already had some contact with Honda's engineering excellence while racing motorcycles a few years earlier and was deeply impressed by their creative flair and obsession with detail and quality. This led to a 17 year relationship with the company and a business friendship with the founder, Soichiro Honda.

Later, as a Director of Honda he found himself spending increasing time in Asia, for so long a spiritual home, although at that time . access to mainland China itself was still almost impossible. His innovative strategies and marketing policies for the rapid growth of the company were used in Honda operations in many parts of the developed world.

Then, in the late 1970's he became the founding Director of the Honda International Racing Company organising many of Honda's racing teams and taking the company back to the Isle of Man TT races and on the world stage, Grand Prix racing. The company had been out of motor sport for over a decade but within 5 years it progressively won all major world championships on both 2 and 4 wheels.

Returning to be Director of UK Operations in 1981 he then lifted Honda's share of the motorcycle market to 50% and made the emerging car franchise the third most profitable behind only Mercedes and Porsche..

Seeking a complete change of direction after leaving Honda in 1985, Gerald moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands as Managing Director of the island's daily newspaper, The Jersey Evening Post and Chairman of a clutch of other local companies. Here, in less than 3 years he increased the pagination of the paper by 30%, added 15% to its circulation, doubling the groups profit and tripling its share price into the bargain.

Island life however proved to be too parochial and 1989 saw him return to the UK to make his home in the West Country. He spent the next decade in 'Mergers & Acquisitions' as Executive Chairman of a number of small and medium sized public companies, including The Keep Trust Plc (built from a very small base into a 'top ten' motor sector company - later sold to Arriva Plc), Norfolk Finance Ltd (a contract hire and leasing company created from scratch and later sold to the US giant, GE Capital Corp.), Fitzwilton (UK) Ltd, Fitzwilton BV. and the listed company Europe Energy Plc, later renamed Millennium Plc. He also held a number of other directorships and for 5 years was one of a small number of independent directors for the venture capitalists, 3i Group Plc.

Retiring from corporate life in 1998 he now concentrates much of his time into travel, writing and lecturing about Asian Art. Recent additions to his lecture subjects include the colourful 250 year history of the English East India Company that became the largest corporate entity the world has ever seen and built an empire for Britain in Asia. His passion for Chinese art, motorsport and riding motorcycles remains entirely undiminished!