Artist

Gene Davis

born Washington, DC 1920-died Washington, DC 1985
Media - davis_gene_2.jpg - 89981
Also known as
  • Gene Bernard Davis
Born
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Died
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Biography

[Gene Davis was] a major figure in 20th-century American painting whose contribution was invaluable in establishing Washington, D.C., as a center of contemporary art. Davis also played a significant national and international role in the color abstraction movement that first achieved prominence in the 1960s.

Born in Washington, D.C., Davis attended local schools and later worked as a sportswriter and White House correspondent before pursuing a career in art. Although never formally trained, Davis educated himself through assiduous visits to New York's museums and galleries as well as to Washington's art institutions, especially the Phillips Collection. He also benefited from the guidance of his friend Jacob Kainen, an artist and art curator.

Davis considered his nonacademic background a blessing that freed him from the limitations of a traditional art school orientation. His early paintings and drawings—though they show the influence of such artists as the Swiss painter Paul Klee and the American abstractionist Arshile Gorky—display a distinct improvisational quality. This same preference for spontaneity characterizes Davis's selection of color in his later stripe paintings. Despite their calculated appearance, Davis's stripe works were not based on conscious use of theories or formulas. Davis often compared himself to a jazz musician who plays by ear, describing his approach to painting as 'playing by eye.'

In the 1960s, art critics identified Davis as a leader of the Washington Color School, a loosely connected group of Washington painters who created abstract compositions in acrylic colors on unprimed canvas. Their work exemplified what the critic Barbara Rose defined as the 'primacy of color' in abstract painting.

Although Davis's work from the 1960s—mostly hard-edged, equal-width stripe paintings—is generally viewed in the context of the Washington Color School, his goal differed significantly from the other Color School practitioners. Artists like Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland generally preferred what Noland called 'oneshot' compositions, mostly symmetrical images that could be comprehended at a glance.

In contrast, Davis experimented with complex schemes that lend themselves to sustained periods of viewing. Davis suggested that "instead of simply glancing at the work, select a specific color—and take the time to see how it operates across the painting.—Enter the painting through the door of a single color, and then you can understand what my painting is all about." In discussing his stripe work, Davis spoke not simply about the importance of color, but about 'color interval:' the rhythmic, almost musical, effects caused by the irregular appearance of colors or shades within a composition.

Davis is known primarily for the stripe works that span twenty-seven years, but he was a versatile artist who worked in a variety of formats and media: modular compositions consisting of discrete, but related, pieces that together form one composition; collages combining cutout fragments of images and text with painted and drawn elements; Klee-inspired images that resemble musical scores; and silhouette self-portraits. His works range in scale from miniscule micro-paintings to mammoth outdoor street paintings. Works in other media include printed conceptual pieces, video tapes, and abstract compositions in neon.

In keeping with his unorthodox attitudes, Davis's works do not follow in an orderly sequence. Davis described his method as "a tendency to raid my past without guilt [by] going back and picking up on some idea that I flirted with briefly, say fifteen or twenty years ago. I will then take this idea and explore it more in depth, almost as if no time had elapsed between the present and the time of its original conception." As a result, similar works may be separated by years or even decades. … Davis's works, which resonate with his romantic, free-wheeling approach to art-making, reveal a seriousness balanced by whimsy and an unpredictability that is always a source of joy.

Jacquelyn D. Serwer Gene Davis: A Memorial Exhibition (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1987)

Works by this artist (8 items)

John Cage, Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel, Lithograph A, 1969, color lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1972.96
Not Wanting to Say Anything about Marcel, Lithograph A
Date1969
color lithograph on paper
Not on view
John Cage, Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Seven, 1978, color etching with hard ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching, and found objects, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Moses Lasky, 2004.32.5.7
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Seven
Date1978
color etching with hard ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching, and found objects
Not on view
John Cage, Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Five, 1978, hard and soft ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching, and found objects, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Moses Lasky, 2004.32.5.5
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Five
Date1978
hard and soft ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching, and found objects
Not on view
John Cage, Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Six, 1978, color etching with hard and soft ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching and found objects, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Moses Lasky, 2004.32.5.6
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), Day Six
Date1978
color etching with hard and soft ground etching, drypoint, sugar aquatint, photo etching and found objects
Not on view

Exhibitions

This is a painting of a large black circle and a smaller red circle surrounded by a blue mass.
Color as Field: American Painting, 1950 – 1975
February 29, 2008May 25, 2008
Color as Field: American Painting, 1950–1975 is the first ever full-scale examination of the sources, meaning and impact of the Color Field movement.
Media - 1977.48.5 - SAAM-1977.48.5_1 - 59312
Local Color: Washington Painting at Midcentury
July 3, 2008October 12, 2008
Explore the expressive possibilities of color in this special installation of twenty-seven large-scale paintings from the museum's permanent collection.
Media - 1996.104.55 - SAAM-1996.104.55_1 - 55872
Abstract Drawings
June 14, 2012January 6, 2013
Abstract Drawings presents a selection of forty-six works on paper from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection that are rarely on public display.
Media - 1976.108.33 - SAAM-1976.108.33_2 - 123040
Gene Davis: Hot Beat
November 18, 2016April 1, 2017
Brightly colored stripes multiply in rhythmic repetitions across the surface of a painting by Gene Davis.