Credit: The Detroit Institute of Arts
Media type: painting
Museum Number: 27.158
Annotation: Davies, Arthur Bowen, 1862-1928, American painter and lithographer, was born in Utica, N.Y. Davies studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York City. Considered a romantic artist, he favored symbolic pictures of the female nude in idyllic landscapes. He was the president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, an organization responsible for the famous Armory Show in New York (1913). This exhibition helped produce considerable interest in contemporary art by introducing modern European art to Americans. He was also a member of The Eight, a group of American artists in New York City that formed in 1908. The group was known as the “ashcan” school because they portrayed common aspects of American life over proper subject matter, and they were bound together by their common opposition to academicism. In 1917, Davies helped organize and served as president of the Society of Independent Artists. Davies and his fellow artists contributed significantly to modern American painting.
Year: 1914