Arthur Bowen Davies (September 26, 1862 – October 24, 1928) was an

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

American artist and influential advocate of modern art in the United States c. 1910–1928.

Biography

Davies was born in

Utica, New York Utica () is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the ...

, the son of David and Phoebe Davies. He was keenly interested in drawing when he was young and, at fifteen, attended a large touring exhibition in his hometown of American landscape art, featuring works by

George Inness George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter. Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...

and members of the

Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. The paintings typically depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area ...

. The show had a profound effect on him. He was especially impressed by Inness's tonalist landscapes. After his family relocated to Chicago, Davies studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882 and briefly attended the Art Institute of Chicago, before moving to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, where he studied at the

Art Students League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

. He worked as a magazine illustrator before devoting himself to painting. In 1892, Davies married Virginia Meriwether, one of New York State's first female physicians. Her family, suspecting that their daughter might end by being the sole breadwinner of the family if she was to marry an impoverished artist, insisted that the

bridegroom A bridegroom (often shortened to groom) is a man who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bridegroom's future spouse (if female) is usually referred to as the bride. A bridegroom is typically attended by a best man ...

sign a

prenuptial agreement A prenuptial agreement, antenuptial agreement, or premarital agreement (commonly referred to as a prenup), is a written contract entered into by a couple prior to marriage or a civil union that enables them to select and control many of the leg ...

, renouncing any claim on his wife's money in the event of divorce. (Davies would eventually become very wealthy through the sale of his paintings, though his prospects at thirty did not look encouraging.) Appearances notwithstanding, they were anything but a conventional couple, even aside from the fact that Davies was of a philandering nature. Virginia had eloped when she was young and had murdered her husband on her honeymoon when she discovered that he was an abusive drug addict and compulsive gambler, a fact that she and her family kept from Davies. When Davies died in 1928, Virginia discovered that he had kept hidden a second life, with another

common-law wife Common-law marriage, also known as non-ceremonial marriage, marriage, informal marriage, or marriage by habit and repute, is a legal framework where a couple may be considered married without having formally registered their relation as a civil ...

, Edna, and family. Edna discovered that she was given a subsistence allowance by Arthur, despite his financial success as an artist. An urbane man with a formal demeanor, Arthur B. Davies was "famously diffident and retiring". He would rarely invite anyone to his studio and, later in life, would go out of his way to avoid old friends and acquaintances. The reason for Davies' reticence became known after his sudden death while vacationing in Italy in 1928: he had two wives (one legal, one common-law) and children by each of them, a secret kept from Virginia for twenty-five years. With Virginia, he had two sons, Niles and Arthur.

Career

Brooklyn Museum - Dancing Children - Arthur B

Brooklyn Museum - The Dawning - Arthur B

Within a year of his marriage, Davies' paintings began to sell, slowly but steadily. In turn-of-the-century America, he found a market for his gentle, expertly painted evocations of a fantasy world. Regular trips to Europe, where he immersed himself in Dutch art and came to love the work of

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly th ...

and Millet, helped him to hone his color sense and refine his brushwork. By the time he was in his forties, Davies had definitively proved his in-laws wrong and, represented by a prestigious Manhattan art dealer, William Macbeth, was making a comfortable living. His reputation at the time, and still today (to the extent that he is known at all), rests on his ethereal figure paintings, the most famous of which is ''Unicorns: Legend, Sea Calm'' (1906) in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 1920s, his works commanded very high prices and he was recognized as one of the most respected and financially successful American painters. He was prolific, consistent, and highly skilled. Art history texts routinely cited him as one of America's greatest artists. Important collectors like Duncan Phillips were eager to buy his latest drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings. Brooklyn Museum - Freshness of the Wounded - Arthur B

Brooklyn Museum - Freshness of the Wounded - Arthur B

Davies was also the principal organizer of the legendary 1913

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

and a member of The Eight, a group of painters who in 1908 mounted a protest against the restrictive exhibition practices of the powerful, conservative National Academy of Design. Five members of the Eight—

Robert Henri Robert Henri (; June 24, 1865 – July 12, 1929) was an American painter and teacher. As a young man, he studied in Paris, where he identified strongly with the Impressionists, and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against A ...

(1865–1929),

George Luks George Benjamin Luks (August 13, 1867 – October 29, 1933) was an American artist, identified with the aggressively realistic Ashcan School of American painting. After travelling and studying in Europe, Luks worked as a newspaper illustrator a ...

(1867–1933),

William Glackens William James Glackens (March 13, 1870 – May 22, 1938) was an American realist painter and one of the founders of the Ashcan School, which rejected the formal boundaries of artistic beauty laid-down by the conservative National Academy of De ...

, (1870–1938),

John Sloan John French Sloan (August 2, 1871 – September 7, 1951) was an American painter and etcher. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Ashcan school of American art. He was also a member of the group known as The Eight. He is best known ...

, (1871–1951), and

Everett Shinn Everett Shinn (November 6, 1876 – May 1, 1953) was an American painter and member of the urban realist Ashcan School. Shinn started as a newspaper illustrator in Philadelphia, demonstrating a rare facility for depicting animated movement, a ...

(1876–1953)—were Ashcan realists, while Davies,

Maurice Prendergast Maurice Brazil Prendergast (October 10, 1858 – February 1, 1924) was an American artist who painted in oil and watercolor, and created monotypes. His delicate landscapes and scenes of modern life, characterized by mosaic-like color, are ...

(1859–1924), and

Ernest Lawson Ernest Lawson (March 22, 1873 – December 18, 1939) was a Canadian-American painter and exhibited his work at the Canadian Art Club and as a member of the American group The Eight, artists who formed a loose association in 1908 to protes ...

(1873–1939) painted in a different, less realistic style. His friend Alfred Stieglitz, patron to many modern artists, regarded Davies as more broadly knowledgeable about contemporary art than anyone he knew. Davies also served as an advisor to many wealthy New Yorkers who wanted guidance about making purchases for their art collections. Two of those collectors were Lizzie P. Bliss and

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefel ...

, two of the founders of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, whose Davies-guided collections eventually became a core part of that museum. Davies was quietly but remarkably generous in his support of fellow artists. He was a mentor to the gifted but deeply troubled sculptor John Flannagan, whom he rescued from dire poverty and near-starvation. He helped finance

Marsden Hartley Marsden Hartley (January 4, 1877 – September 2, 1943) was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist. Hartley developed his painting abilities by observing Cubist artists in Paris and Berlin. Early life and education Hartley was born ...

's 1912 trip to Europe, which resulted in a major phase of Hartley's career. He recommended to his own dealer financially strapped artists whose talent he believed in, like Rockwell Kent. Yet Davies made enemies as well. His role in organizing the Armory Show, a massive display of modern art which proved somewhat threatening to American realists like Robert Henri, the leader of The Eight, showed a forceful side to his character that many in the art world had never seen. With fellow artists

Walt Kuhn Walter Francis Kuhn (October 27, 1877 – July 13, 1949) was an American painter and an organizer of the famous Armory Show of 1913, which was America's first large-scale introduction to European Modernism. Biography Kuhn was born in New York ...

and Walter Pach, he devoted himself with great zeal to the project of scouring Europe for the best examples of Cubism, Fauvism, and Futurism and publicizing the exhibition in New York and later in Chicago and Boston. Those who did not fully support the venture or expressed any reservations, like his old colleague Henri, were treated with contempt. Davies knew in which direction the tide of art history was flowing and displayed little tolerance for those who could not keep pace. In an official statement for a pamphlet that was sold at the Chicago venue of the Armory Show and later reprinted in ''The Outlook'' magazine, Davies wrote: "In getting together the works of the European Moderns, the Society .e., the organizing body for the Armory Show, the Association of American Painters and Sculptorshas embarked on no propaganda. It proposes to enter on no controversy with any institution ... Of course, controversies will arise, but they will not be the result of any stand taken by the Association as such." With these masterfully disingenuous words, Davies pretended that the men who had brought some of the most radical contemporary art to the United States were merely offering Americans an opportunity for a dispassionate viewing experience. In reality, Davies, Kuhn, and Pach knew that their bold project was likely to alter, decisively and permanently, the cultural landscape of America.

Style

Arthur B. Davies is an anomaly in American art history, an artist whose own lyrical work could be described as restrained and conservative but whose tastes were as advanced and open to experimentation as those of anyone of his time. (His personal art collection at the time of his death included works by Alfred Maurer, Marsden Hartley, and

Joseph Stella Joseph Stella (born Giuseppe Michele Stella, June 13, 1877 – November 5, 1946) was an Italian-born American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America, especially his images of the Brooklyn Bridge. He is also ...

as well as major European modernists like Cézanne and Brâncuși.) As art historian Milton Brown wrote of Davies' early period, "A product of the Tonalist school and Whistler, he had developed a unique decorative style. He was completely eclectic," with influences that ranged from Hellenistic Greek art to

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...

, the German painter Arnold Böcklin, and the English Pre-Raphaelites. A painter of dream-like maidens and "frieze-like idylls," he was most often compared to the French artist Pierre

Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Bea ...

. His involvement with the Armory Show and prolonged exposure to European Modernism, however, changed his outlook utterly. As art historian

Sam Hunter Sam Hunter may refer to: People *Sam Hunter (art historian) (1923–2014), American historian of modern art * Sam Hunter (cartoonist) (1858–1939), Canadian cartoonist * Samuel Hunter (gymnast) (born 1988), British male artistic gymnast * Samuel D ...

wrote, " necould scarcely have guessed that the bold colors of

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

and the radical simplifications of the Cubists would engage Davies' sympathies," but so they did. His subsequent work attempted to merge stronger color and a Cubist sense of structure and Cubist forms with his on-going preoccupation with the female body, delicate movement, and an essentially romantic outlook (e.g., ''Day of Good Fortune,'' in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art.) "Mr. Davies takes his Cubism lightly," a sympathetic critic wrote in 1913, acknowledging a view, held then and now, that Davies' Cubist-inspired paintings have an elegant appeal but are not in the more rigorous or authentic spirit of Cubism as practiced by Picasso, Georges Braque, and

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

. By 1918, Davies returned, in large part, to his earlier style. Kimberly Orcutt plausibly speculates that Davies found the mixed reactions (and sometimes very negative responses) to his more modernist explorations distressing and so "returned to the style that was expected of him, the one that had brought him praise and prosperity."Orcutt, p. 30. A traditionalist, a visionary, an Arcadian fantasist, an advocate for Modernism: varied and seemingly contradictory designations describe Arthur B. Davies.

Selected works

* Untitled (seated woman), watercolor and gouache on paper (1889)
The Phillips Collection

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

* ''Along the Erie Canal'', oil on canvas (1890)
The Phillips Collection

* ''Visions of Glory'', oil on canvas (1896
The Phillips Collection

* ''Viola Obligato'', oil on wood panel (1895
The Phillips Collection

* ''Meeting in the Forest'' (1900)
Montclair Art Museum
Montclair, N.J. * ''The Flood'', oil on canvas (1903
The Phillips Collection

* ''Children, Dogs and Pony'', oil on canvas (1905)
The Phillips Collection

* ''Many Waters'', oil on paper adhered to canvas (c. 1905)
The Phillips Collection

* ''Springtime of Delight'', oil on canvas (1906)
The Phillips Collection

* ''Stars and Dews and Dreams of Night'', oil on canvas (1927)
Corcoran Gallery of Art

* ''City Girls and Country Boy'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''Clothed in Dominion''
view
* ''Dew Drops'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''Elysian Fields'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''Girl at the Fountain''
view
* ''Gondolas'', watercolor & gouache on paper
The Phillips Collection

* ''Horses of Attica'', after 1910, oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''Olive Trees'', watercolor and gouache on paper
The Phillips Collection

* ''Romance'', watercolor & gouache on paper
The Phillips Collection

* ''The Birth of the Green'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''The Dancers'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''The Hesitation of Orestes'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''The Violin Girl''
view
* ''The Voyage'', oil on canvas
The Phillips Collection

* ''Tissue Parnassian'', by 1923
The Phillips Collection

* ''Woman with Orange Background'', pastel and chalk on paper
The Phillips Collection

* untitled black & white chalk landscape, pastel and chalk on pape
The Phillips Collection

* untitled landscape, pastel and chalk on paper
The Phillips Collection

* untitled landscape with purple mountains, pastel and chalk on paper
The Phillips Collection

* untitled landscape with three single trees, pastel and chalk on paper
The Phillips Collection

* untitled landscape with trees, pastel and chalk on paper
The Phillips Collection

* untitled pastel, pastel and chalk on pape
The Phillips Collection

Pastel drawings

Collection pastel drawings in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York (selection) File:Across the Valley MET DP158110.jpg, Across the Valley, pastel on bright blue Japanese paper (18.9 x 27 cm) File:Autumn Woods MET DP158112.jpg, Autumn Woods, pastel on dark brown wove paper (18.4 x 27.8 cm) File:Bear Island Light MET DP158100.jpg, Bear Island Light, pastel on blue wove paper (26 x 31.6 cm) File:Blue Thicket MET DP158130.jpg, Blue Thicket, pastel on gray paper (18.6 x 27.8 cm) File:Boat in Distress MET DP158101.jpg, Boat in Distress, pastel on dark gray wove paper (26 x 31.1 cm) File:Boats at Evening MET DP158107.jpg, Boats at Evening, pastel on light tan wove paper (14.6 x 22.5 cm) File:High Point MET DT203433.jpg, High Point, pastel on gray paper (18.7 x 33 cm) File:House on Hillside MET DP158129.jpg, House on Hillside, pastel on dark gray-green paper (19.5 x 25.4 cm) File:Landscape with Clouds MET DP158119.jpg, Landscape with Clouds, pastel and black chalk on green-gray wove paper (15.6 x 26.8 cm) File:Blue Landscape MET DP158121.jpg, Blue Landscape, pastel on dark blue wove paper (16.5 x 29.4 cm)

Public collections

(In alphabetical order by

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

, then by

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, then by museum name) *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 19 ...

(

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

) *Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery ( Scripps College, Claremont, California) *

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

(

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

) *

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desig ...

(

) * National Gallery of Art (

) *

The Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...

(

) * Smithsonian American Art Museum (

) *

High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art (colloquially the High) is the largest museum for visual art in the Southeastern United States. Located in Atlanta, Georgia (on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district), the High is 312,000 square feet (28, ...

(

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

) *

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single co ...

(

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

) *

Smart Museum of Art The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection has over 15,000 objects. Admission is free and open to the general public. The Smart Muse ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

(

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

) * Block Museum of Art (

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...

) * Cedarhurst Center for the Arts (

Mt. Vernon, Illinois Mount Vernon is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Illinois, United States. The population was 14,600 at the 2020 census. Mount Vernon is the principal city of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all o ...

) *Midwest Museum of American Art (

Elkhart, Indiana Elkhart ( ) is a city in Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. The city is located east of South Bend, Indiana, east of Chicago, Illinois, and north of Indianapolis, Indiana. Elkhart has the larger population of the two principal cities of th ...

) *Ulrich Museum of Art,

Wichita State University Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

(

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

) *

Farnsworth Art Museum The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, United States, is an art museum that specializes in American art. Its permanent collection includes works by such artists as Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, Fitz Henry La ...

(

Rockland, Maine Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census, the town population was 6,936. It is the county seat of Knox County, Maine, Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination ...

) *

Addison Gallery of American Art The Addison Gallery of American Art is an academic museum dedicated to collecting American art, organized as a department of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. History Directors of the gallery include Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr. (1940– ...

(

Andover, Massachusetts Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was settled in 1642 and incorporated in 1646."Andover" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th ed., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 387. As of th ...

) * Museum of Fine Arts ( Boston, Massachusetts) *

Harvard University Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

(

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

) *

Worcester Art Museum The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...

(

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

) *

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

Minneapolis Institute of Arts The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...

( Minneapolis, Minnesota) *

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

( Minneapolis, Minnesota) *

Sheldon Museum of Art The Sheldon Museum of Art is an art museum in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. Its collection focuses on 19th- and 20th-century art. History Sheldon Art Association In 1888, The Sheldon Art Assoc ...

(

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

) *

Montclair Art Museum The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...

(

Montclair, New Jersey Montclair () is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated on the cliffs of the Watchung Mountains, Montclair is a wealthy and diverse commuter town and suburb of New York City within the New York metropolitan area. ...

) * Brooklyn Museum (

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

) *

Heckscher Museum of Art The Heckscher Museum of Art is named after its benefactor, August Heckscher, who in 1920 donated 185 works of art to be housed in a new Beaux-Arts building located in Heckscher Park, in Huntington, New York. The museum has over 2000 works of art ...

( Huntington, New York) *

(

New York City, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) *

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian ...

( Cleveland, Ohio) * Butler Institute of American Art (

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, whi ...

)
Richard M. Ross Art Museum
(Delaware, Ohio) *Museum of Art (

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...

Westmoreland Museum of American Art The Westmoreland Museum of American Art is an art museum in Greensburg, Pennsylvania devoted to American art, with a particular concentration on the art of southwestern Pennsylvania. Art lover Mary Marchand Woods bequeathed her entire estate to ...

(

Greensburg, Pennsylvania Greensburg is a city in and the county seat of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States, and a part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The city lies within the Laurel Highlands and the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau. The city is ...

) * Philadelphia Museum of Art (

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

) *

Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh are four museums that are operated by the Carnegie Institute headquartered in the Carnegie Institute complex in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Carnegie Institute complex, which includes th ...

(

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

) *

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is an art museum in Memphis, Tennessee. The Brooks Museum, which was founded in 1916, is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Tennessee. The museum is a privately funded nonprofit institution located in ...

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Maier Museum of Art

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References

Sources

* Brown, Milton. ''American Painting from the Armory Show to the Depression.'' Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. * Burroughs, A. "The Art of Arthur B. Davies". '' Print Connoisseur'' (January 1923), p. 196. * Czestochowski, Joseph S. ''The Works of Arthur B. Davies.'' Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1979. * Hughes, Robert. ''American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America.'' New York: Knopf, 1997. * Hunter, Sam. ''Modern American Painting and Sculpture.'' New York: Dell, 1959. * Kennedy, Elizabeth (ed.). ''The Eight and American Modernisms.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. * Perlman, Bennard B. ''The Lives, Loves, and Art of Arthur B. Davies.'' Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998. * Sherman, Frederic Fairchild. ''American Painters of Yesterday and Today'', privately printed in New York, 1919
Chapter: Arthur B. Davies
(at archive.org) * Wright, Brooks. ''The Artist and the Unicorn: The Lives of Arthur B. Davies, 1862–1928.'' New York: Historical Society of Rockland County, 1978.

External links

Visionary modernist impresario : a look at Arthur B. Davies and his world, 1900-1928 : panel discussion, 1981 March 27Arthur Bowen Davies exhibition catalogs
(full pdf) from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries {{DEFAULTSORT:Davies, Arthur Bowen 1863 births 1928 deaths American illustrators Symbolist painters 19th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American painters Art Students League of New York alumni 20th-century American printmakers Pastel artists 19th-century American male artists People from Utica, New York 20th-century American male artists