Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 12

Arthur Bowen Davies
South Spring Wind - Voice of Persephone

c. 1920

About the Item

South Spring Wind - Voice of Persephone Sanguine on paper heightened with white gouache over the entire sheet Signed lower left An important work on paper by the artist with extensive exhibition history (see labels). The artist used the theme of Persephone in paintings, drawings and prints. Condition: Excellent Image/Sheet size: 17 1/2 x 13 5/8 inches Housed in an 8 ply rag mat Provenance: Mildred Davies (the artist's widow) Feragil Gallery, New York (label) Montrsoe Gallery, New York (label) FAR Gallery, New York (label) Biography Arthur B. Davies’s mystical, mysterious paintings hearken back to 19th-century romanticism, even while Davies aligned himself with American artists advancing the most radical ideals of their day. Davies was born on September 26, 1862, in Utica, New York, the son of English and Welsh parents who had immigrated to the United States in 1856. He first took art lessons as a teenager from a local landscape painter, Dwight Williams. By 1879 Davies's family had moved to Chicago, where he attended the Chicago Academy of Design. He interrupted his studies in the early 1880s to work in New Mexico and Mexico as a draftsman for a railway expansion company. Davies later attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then moved to New York City, where he enrolled in the Art Students League. During his first years in New York he supported himself as a magazine illustrator. Davies’s work was shown at the American Art Galleries, the National Academy of Design, and in an exhibition of the American Watercolor Society. After his marriage to the physician Lucy Virginia Meriwether in 1892, Davies moved to a farm in Congers, in upstate New York, and commuted to his studio in the city. Acting on the recommendation of the dealer William Macbeth, the department store magnate Benjamin Altman provided financial support that enabled the young artist to make two trips to Europe. Davies had his first solo exhibition at Macbeth Gallery in 1896. In the early 1900s, Davies began to lead a double personal life: though he remained married and continued to visit his wife and children on weekends, he moved in with Edna Potter, a model and dancer, in New York. They assumed the alias of Mr. and Mrs. David A. Owen and kept their relationship, and their daughter, a secret until Davies’s death. Davies's most distinctive works are the dreamlike, fantasy visions of female nudes standing in pastoral landscapes that he began to paint around 1900. These enigmatic subjects possess a distinctly classical flavor and have literary and mythological allusions. Such works have a strong affinity with symbolism and are often compared with those of the French artists Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (French, 1824 - 1898) and Odilon Redon (French, 1840 - 1916). Despite his style and subject matter—which had more of an affinity with the 19th century than the 20th—Davies joined the circle of young, progressive artists who gathered around Robert Henri (American, 1865 - 1929). Davies showed his work with theirs at the historic exhibition of The Eight at the Macbeth Gallery in 1908, and his paintings were included in the Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1910. He became president of the Society of Independent Artists in 1911 and played a pivotal role in organizing the Armory Show in 1913, which introduced Americans to the latest developments in European avant-garde art. Davies’s role as a fierce proponent of modernism in the work of others, rather than in his own artistic practice, was his greatest contribution to the field. After the Armory Show Davies briefly painted in a cubist-influenced style, but soon returned to the idyllic scenes for which he is best known. Davies also experimented with sculpture in a variety of styles and materials, including tapestry, and was an accomplished graphic artist. He served as advisor to the collector Lillie P. Bliss, helping her amass the collection that is now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Toward the end of his life he spent extended periods of time in Paris and Florence, Italy. He died of a heart attack in Florence on October 24, 1928. Robert Torchia, Catherine Southwick Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Creator:
    Arthur Bowen Davies (1862-1928, American)
  • Creation Year:
    c. 1920
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)Width: 13.63 in (34.63 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Fairlawn, OH
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: FA38851stDibs: LU14015836492

More From This Seller

View All
Woman Pulling on a Slip
By Everett Shinn
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Woman Pulling on a Slip Conte on paper, c. 1910 Signed lower right: "E. Shinn" (see photo of legs, signature on right) Provenance: Estate of the Artist (see label) Graham Gallery, N...
Category

1910s Ashcan School Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Conté

Study of an Indian Model
By Arthur B. Davies
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study of an Indian Model Unsigned Pastel and chalk on blue paper, mounted to support Provenance: Estate of the artist (per Graham and Sons, agent for the estate) James Graham & Sons,...
Category

1920s Ashcan School Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Chalk, Pastel

Untitled (Woman Removing Her Stockings)
By Everett Shinn
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Woman Removing Her Stockings) Conte crayon on paper. c. 1905 Signed lower right: E Shinn Provenance: James Graham & Sons, New York (labels) Ronald C. Sloter, Columbus Colum...
Category

Early 1900s Ashcan School Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Conté

Untitled (Woman in Stockings), Standing Female Nude on reverse, double sided
By Everett Shinn
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Conte crayon on paper, c. 1905-1909 Signed lower right Archival frame by Graham Gallery, New York, hand carved frame with silk matting and gold fillet (see photo of corner) Provenanc...
Category

Early 1900s Ashcan School Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Chalk

Snow White
By Peregrine Honig
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Snow White pen and ink with watercolor, 1999 Signed with the artist's initials and dated along the bottom edge (see photo) Sheet size: 6 x 6 inches Peregrine Honig (born 1976 in San Francisco, CA) is an American artist whose work is concerned with the relationship between pop culture, sexual vulnerability, social anxieties, the ethics of luxury and trends in consumerism. Honig appeared on season one of Bravo’s artist reality television show, Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, which aired from June 9–August 11, 2010, finishing in second place. Career Born in San Francisco and raised in The Castro and in Project Artaud, Honig moved to Kansas City, Missouri, at 17 to attend the Kansas City Art Institute. At age 22, Honig was the youngest living artist to have work acquired by the Whitney Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Honig’s work is included in private and public collections, including: The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Art Gallery, The Fogg Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum...
Category

1990s Contemporary Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Femme assise nue avec un bras levé au-dessus de sa tête Seated female nude ...
By Henri Lebasque
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Femme assise nue avec un bras levé au-dessus de sa tête Seated female nude with an arm raised over her head Ink and watercolor on paper, n.d. Signed in pencil lower right (see photo)...
Category

1930s French School Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

You May Also Like

Hand Fan Project With The Goddess Diana The Huntress floating in the clouds
By François Flameng
Located in PARIS, FR
François FLAMENG Paris 1856 - 1923 Diana the Huntress floating in the clouds, fan project 1893 Watercolor and gouache on wove paper Signed and dated lower right 25 x 70 cm sheet (le...
Category

1890s French School Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache

Study after Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment”
By Michelangelo Buonarroti
Located in New York, NY
Italian School, 16th Century Provenance: Private Collection, New York This intriguing drawing is a study by an anonymous 16th-century Italian artist after a vignette in Michelangelo’s fresco of The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel. The altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was already richly decorated when Pope Clement VII commissioned Michelangelo to paint his Last Judgment...
Category

16th Century Old Masters Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Art Nouveau Female Nude William Shakespeare - "The Dryad Tree Forest of Arden"
Located in Miami, FL
The Dryads… Ancient beings of old growth forests, with wisdom of ages long forgotten, knowing much of what us busy folk have forgotten. The Forest of Arden is famously featured in S...
Category

Early 1900s Art Nouveau Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

Nude Girl Epiphany Playboy Cartoon - Women's Liberation Moment
By Richard Taylor
Located in Miami, FL
Richard Taylor is one of the great Cartoonists. He is celebrated for his dry sense of humor and skill in depicting people in subtle narratives. His instantly recognizable style is ...
Category

1960s Conceptual Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Illustration Board, Pencil

Harem: Sexy Nude Girl Illustration for Playboy. First Black Illustrator
By E. Simms Campbell
Located in Miami, FL
Playboy Magazine ran this joke cartoon illustration in color on page 43 for the October 1960 edition. Signed lower right. The work is executed on a heavy Whatman Illustration board....
Category

1960s American Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Illustration Board, Pencil, Gouache

Nude Show Girl Buttocks Pondered by Show Horse - Sexy Cartoon Mad Magazine
Located in Miami, FL
This sexy joke cartoon with thought balloons and some bathroom humor was done by the brilliant humorist cartoonist for Mad Magazine, Al Jaffee. The joke's...
Category

1960s Conceptual Animal Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Gouache

Recently Viewed

View All