Biography from Crocker Art Museum Store:
| Modernist painter. Born in Seattle, WA on May 26, 1891. The Davies family moved to a farm near Cherrydale, VA when Harold was an infant. Artistically inclined at an early age, he began to study art at age 14 at the CGA.
In 1909 he moved to Fresno, CA where he worked as a clerk for the San Joaquin Power & Light Company. Davies further studied at the San Francisco Institute of Art. By 1921 he had moved to Oakland where he became president of California Spray Chemical Company.
A busy executive, he painted in his leisure. He lived in Huntsville, AL during 1945-57 and in Long Island, NY until 1969. Retiring to California, he had a home and studio in Inverness on Tomales Bay until his death on May 29, 1976.
An Abstract Expressionist, his works are similar to those of De Kooning and Hofmann.
Member: Oakland Art League; SFAA; Huntsville (AL) AA. Exh: SFAA, 1921-31; Oakland Art Gallery, 1931; Birmingham (AL) Museum, 1951; Sewanee (TN) College, 1954; Southampton (NY) Museum, 1959; University of Long Island Museum, 1964; Hoover Gallery (SF), 1975; Fresno Art Center, 1976 (solo); Haggin Museum (Stockton), 1981; Huntsville (AL) Museum, 1982. CA&A; Mal; SF Chronicle, 4-2-1978. | | 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. |
Biography from Linden Hayes Fine Art:
| Harold Christopher Davies was a painter with whom art came first and
commercialism last. Though he was a remarkably passionate and somewhat
prolific artist, he resisted gallery representation until the age of
eighty-four, just one year before his death.
Davies began his formal
art education at the age of fourteen, enrolling in the Corcoran Art
Institute in Washington, D.C. Later he continued his studies at the
San Francisco Institute of Art.
An abstract expressionist, his style was directly influenced by
Cezanne, Gorky and de Kooning. Being a man of intense dedication to his
art, he kept extensive notebooks and sketchbooks in which he developed
his own artistic and aesthetic philosophy, often through his candid
critiques of other artist’s works.
Painting, for Davies, was not a means of earning his living. Though he
exhibited frequently at various local colleges and museums, he never
sought public recognition of his talent. He believed fame compromised
the integrity of an artist’s work. Davies earned his living as a
businessman, eventually owning and operating his own chemical company.
He lived a life of balancing his monetary obligations with the true
love of his life: painting.
After living in a variety of cities around the United States, Davies
moved to Inverness, California in 1969 where he was free to devote all
his time to his art.
MEMBER:
Oakland Art League
San Francisco Art Association
Huntsville (Ala.) Art Association
EXHIBITED:
San Francisco Art Association, 1921-1931
Oakland Art Gallery, 1931
Birmingham Museum, 1951
Southampton Museum, 1959
University of Long Island Museum, 1964
Parrish Art Museum, 1964, 1966, 1967
Hoover Gallery (San Francisco), 1975
Fresno Art Center, 1976 (Solo)
Haggin Museum 1982
Huntsville Museum, 1982
1891: HAROLD CHRISTOPHER DAVIES was born in Seattle, Washington on May 26th or 27th.
1892: Parents moved to Washington, D.C.
1893: Father bought a small farm in Cherrydale, Virginia where the family lived until 1900.
1900-1901: Family moved to Georgetown to be closes to schools and to
the war Department where Davies’ father worked. The greater convenience
of schools did not impress Davies whose independent mind and creative
bent did not lend themselves to a regimented scholastic discipline.
Impatient with the learning process, he did not complete high school.
Mrs. Davies has noted that “he stayed long enough to see that it was
slow going. So, he left and went to library 9-5 and covered the same
subjects in short order.”
1905-1909: Attended the Corcoran Art Institute in Washington, D.C.
Where he had his first exhibit in school. Davies mentor at the Corcoran
was Edmund C. Messer who encouraged the young artist to keep up his
painting.
1909: Moved to Fresno, California. Davies was listed in city records as
a student, artist and in 1915 he was employed as a clerk by the San
Joaquin Power and Light Company.
1912: registered in the ledger of the San Francisco Art Institute (then the Mark Hopkins Institute).
1917: In the army as a lieutenant at Ft. Lewis, Washington until the end of the war.
1920: Moved to the Bay area and enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute)
1921: Family moved to Oakland, California. Worked as the office manager
of the Cleveland Metal Products Company. According to Mrs. Davies, “He
painted evenings and weekends, out of doors”. Exhibited at the San
Francisco Art Associations 45th Annual Exhibition at the Palace of Fine
Arts.
1922: Exhibited at the San Francisco Art Associations 46th Annual
Exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts and at the Oakland Museum.
1924: Exhibited at the San Francisco Art Associations 47th Annual Exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts.
1925: Exhibited at the San Francisco Art Associations 48th Annual Exhibition at the Legion of Honor.
1929: Exhibited at the San Francisco Art Associations 51st Annual Exhibition at the California School of Fine Arts.
1931: Exhibited at the annual, no-jury exhibition of the Oakland Art
League at the Oakland Art Gallery. A newspaper review in the Oakland
Tribune featured a photograph of one of Davies exhibited landscapes and
reported that, “Davies work is interesting in the arrangement of form.
We suspect that he played with his little block like houses as a child
might play with his tinker toys – with the result that he found a naïve
and interesting pattern.” Exhibited at the San Francisco Art
Association’s 53rd Annual Exhibition at the Legion of Honor.
1933: Became controller and later president of the California Spray
Chemical Company where he stayed for about 12 years. He continued
painting in his off hours.
1938: Married Margaret Martin and moved to Orinda, California.
1943: Traveled to New York City, the beginning of many of his pilgrimages there.
1945: Moved to Huntsville, Alabama as owner and president of the
Calabama Spray Chemical Company. During his stay in Huntsville, Davies
exhibited at Madison County Art Association’s Third Annual Exhibition.
He was an active member of the association.
1950: Exhibited in Huntsville, and started an art class.
1951: Exhibited at the Birmingham Museum, Birmingham, Alabama. Was a founding member of the Huntsville Art Association.
1954: Exhibited at Sewanee College, Tennessee where he also lectured on Renaissance painters. Traveled to New York.
1957: Moved to East Hampton, Long Island, New York and devoted his time
to painting. It was here that he knew Gottlieb, Kline and de Kooning,
and met Lee Krasner.
1958-1959: Exhibited at the 20th and 21st Annual Members’ exhibition at
Guild Hall, East Hampton. Exhibited at 1st Ashawagh Hall (Springs) Art
Gala. Exhibited at Southampton Museum, Southampton, New York.
1961: Met artist Lee Sander
1964: Exhibited at the opening of the University of Long Island Museum,
Southampton, New York. Exhibited at the South Fork, Long Island Its
Artist exhibition, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York.
1966: Exhibited at the 1966 Invitational Exhibition of the Parrish
Museum with Green, Krasner, Little, Rattner and Rivers. “The six
artists selected are well known in the artistic circles of this region.
Some of them have reputations exceeding our national limits and have
achieved world-wide recognition.” - George Albert Perret, Director,
Parrish Art Museum.
1967: Exhibited at the 15th Annual Fine Arts Festival, Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York
1969: Moved to Inverness, California (North of San Francisco) and spent his full time painting.
1975: Exhibited at the Hoover Gallery and Marquoit Gallery in a joint
exhibition in San Francisco. “The Greening of Artist Davies at 84” by
Albert Moch appears in the San Francisco Examiner (June 8).
1976: One-man retrospective at the Fresno Art Center, Fresno, California.
1976: Harold Christopher Davies died May 29, 1976 at the age of 85.
1977: “Harold Davies: A Talent that Went Unknown Too Long” by Anita
Clay Kornfeld appears in the Portland Oregonian’s Northwest Magazine
(April 3). “The Archives of American Art in California” by Paul
Karlstrom appears in American Art Review, with a discussion of the
donation of the Davies papers to the Archives collection. A work from
the East Hampton Series is reproduced on page 95 (December). Archives
of American Art Journal Smithsonian Institution, “West Coast Report” by
Paul Karlstrom acknowledges the gift of Harold Davies’ sketchbooks,
notebooks and journals. Reproduction of a page from one of Mr. Davies
East Hampton journals is featured. (Volume 17 Number 3).
1978: “The Legacy of Harold Davies” by Ezekiel Green appears in the San
Francisco Chronicle/Examiner’s California Living Magazine (April 2).
1979: “The Dual Life of Harold Christopher Davies” by Anne Heymann is published in Art Voices South (January/February).
1982: “Harold Christopher Davies (1891-1976) A Retrospective
Exhibition” at the Haggin Museum, Stockton, California and Huntsville
Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama.
Source:
Time – line from the excerpted notes of Harold C. Davies, in a letter to Mr. F. Herbert Hoover dated November 18, 1976
Credit: F. Herbert Hoover, Jan Holloway
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