The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (131 page)

 
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(1920– ).
British painter, graphic artist, poet, musician, silversmith, and jeweller. After service in the army and a short period as a professional jazz musician (he plays several instruments), he travelled in Europe, 1948–9. This gave him the chance to see works by Jackson
Pollock
and other American painters in Peggy
Guggenheim's
gallery in Venice, and he was one of the first British artists to be affected by
Abstract Expressionism
. Other influences on his eclectic but extremely personal style are African sculpture and Zen Buddhism. His work is full of images suggestive of magic or mythology (some based on ancient forms, some of his own invention) and he uses these as themes around which—like a jazz musician—he spontaneously develops variations in exuberant colour and brushwork. From the 1960s he developed an international reputation.

 
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(1862–1928).
American painter, printmaker, and tapestry designer. Davies was a member of the circle of Robert
Henri
, a member of the
Eight
group and president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors that was created to organize the
Armory Show
. He was a man of wide and liberal culture, and his enthusiasm for the project was largely responsible for the scope of the show and the force of its impact. Although his own work was not radical, it was varied and embraced remarkably diverse influences (unlike the other members of the Eight he did not specialize in modern urban scenes). In his early career he showed an enthusiasm for the
Pre-Raphaelites
,
Whistler
, and
Puvis de Chavannes
, and specialized in idyllic landscapes inhabited by dreamlike, visionary figures of nude women or mythical animals (
Unicorns
, Met. Mus. of Art, New York, 1906). After the Armory Show his work showed superficial
Cubist
influence, but in the 1920s he returned to a more traditional style.

 
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(1894–1964).
American painter. He grew up in an artistic environment, for his father was art director of a Philadelphia newspaper who had employed
Glackens
,
Luks
,
Shinn
, and
Sloan
and his mother was a sculptor. In 1910–13 he studied with Robert
Henri
in New York, and in 1913 was one of the youngest exhibitors in the
Armory Show
, which made an overwhelming impact on him. After this he began experimenting with a variety of modern idioms and in the 1920s he achieved a sophisticated grasp of
Cubism
, but it was only after spending a year in Paris in 1928–9 that he forged a distinctive style. Using natural forms, particularly forms suggesting the characteristic environment of American life, he rearranged them into flat poster-like patterns with precise outlines and sharply contrasting colours (
House and Street
, Whitney Mus., New York, 1931). In this way he became the only major artist to treat the subject-matter of the
American Scene painters
—extraordinarily popular at the time—in avant-garde terms; he was both distinctly American and distinctively modern—a rare combination that won him wide admiration. Later he went over to more purely abstract patterns, into which he often introduced lettering, suggestions of advertisements, posters, etc. (
Owh! in San Pao
, Whitney Mus., 1951). The zest and dynamism of such works reflect his interest in jazz. However abstract his work became he always claimed that every image he used had its source in observed reality: ‘I paint what I see in America, in other words I paint the American Scene.’ Davis was one of the outstanding American painters of the 20th cent. and an important link between the pioneering avant-garde artists of the Armory Show generation and the triumphant New York art scene of the post-war years. He was an articulate defender of modern art, a major influence on many younger artists, including his friends
Gorky
and
de Kooning
, and a precursor of
Pop art
.

 
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Deacon , Richard
.

See
NEW BRITISH SCULPTURE
.

 
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