Biography from Owen Gallery:
| Arthur Bowen Davies, the fourth of five children, was born in Utica,
New York. His first formal art training was at the Art Institute
of Chicago in the early 1880s. By the end of the decade, Davies
moved to New York City and began exhibiting his artwork.
He was
one of eight artists included in the landmark exhibition at the Macbeth
Gallery in 1908. The show was meant as a protest to the
conservative tastes of the National Academy of Design. Many of
the artists of The Eight, a term later used for them, followed the
Ashcan School aesthetic of Robert Henri.
The paintings of
Davies, however, lack an interest in coarse realism. According to
Brian Paul Clamp, "Davies's scenes are of the imagination. Nymphs
and fairies frolic in pastoral landscapes which resonate with
allegorical and mythic overtones."
Though Davies's work is not
well understood today, he was certainly well respected and widely
collected in his own day. His contribution to the promotion of
progressive American art must be noted. Aside from his
participation in the organization of The Eight exhibition, he was the
primary creative and administrative force behind the pivotal Armory
Show of 1913, which first brought the full force of Modernism to the
United States. Davies's involvement with the Modern artists is
reflected in his production of cubist-inspired works during the period.
Owen Gallery credits: The Eight: Bridging the Art of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
by Brian Paul Clamp; and "The Independents: The Ashcan School &
Their Circle from Florida Collections" by Valerie Ann Leeds in American Art Review, May 1996.
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Biography from AskART:
| Born in Utica, New York, Arthur Davies gained a reputation for ethereal
figure paintings, ones that expressed lightness and mysticism. He
was also a principal organizer of the 1913 Armory Show that
revolutionized American art by introducing modernism to the viewing
public.
He attended the Chicago Academy of Design and from 1879
to 1882, traveled in the West, to Colorado and Mexico City where he
worked as a drafting civil engineer. He briefly attended the
Chicago Art Institute, and in 1885 moved to New York City where he
studied at the Art Students League and Gotham Art Students
League. He supported himself as a billboard painter, engineering
draftsman, and magazine illustrator.
In 1893, he made the
first of many trips to Europe, visiting Holland, Paris, and London. He
particularly studied the Dutch realist painters, the Maris
brothers. He settled in Congers, New York and from there traveled
extensively throughout the United States.
He developed a style
that combined the visionary with Symbolism with elements of Tonalism,
Art Nouveau, and Cubism and became increasingly interested in
expressing a feeling of lightness in figural compositions.
He also did printmaking, having begun in the 1880s and producing some
two-hundred graphic works between 1916 and his death in 1928.
Source:
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Artists
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Biography from AskART:
| | Born in Utica, NY in 1862 of Welsh descent. When Arthur was 16, the Davies family moved to Chicago. He studied at the AIC and later furthered his art studies in Mexico while working as a civil engineer. His first exhibition was in 1888 at the American Art Ass'n. While in northern California in 1905, he painted in the Sierra. He was one of "The Eight," a group of painters who became a symbol of revolt in American art after an exhibition in NYC in 1908. Davies was instrumental in creating the Armory Show of 1913 there after which time he adopted a Cubist style. His final years were spent in Florence, Italy; he died there in 1928. Famous for his landscapes with figures, his early paintings were romantic and emotional while his later works were more self-conscious. Member: NA. Exh: Newhouse Gallery (LA), 1929. In: MM; Oakland Museum; AIC. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Artists of the American West (Samuels); Art in California (R. L. Bernier, 1916); Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs (Bénézit, E); From Frontier to Fire; Art News, 12-22-1928 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Arthur Davies is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
New York Armory Show of 1913
Painters of Nudes
San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exhibition 1915
Tonalism
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