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for Charles Harold Davis
American, 1856 - 1933
Although Charles H. Davis had done some occasional drawing while working as an apprentice carriage maker in Amesbury, he did not begin serious study of art until he was twenty-one, when he moved to Boston and enrolled in the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. After several years of classes with the museum's Otto Grundmann, he returned to Amesbury to work as a portraitist. He did not remain there long, for in 1880, with financing from a local carriage manufacturer, he went abroad to study.
Traveling to Paris by way of Scotland, Davis began work at the Académie Julian under Gustav Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. Not long after arriving, however, he visited the Barbizon region, where the appeal of the landscape led him to neglect his formal studies and turn away from figure painting. Davis began showing his landscapes at the Salon and spending his summers in the French countryside. He married a French woman, Angèle G. Legarde, in 1884 and stayed in France for another six years. He also maintained ties with the New York art world. Davis was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1886, and in 1887 Reichard and Company, New York, presented an exhibition of his work.
Davis settled in Mystic, Connecticut, upon his return to America and soon established a close relationship with the New York dealer William Macbeth. When his wife became ill in the mid-1890s, the expenses of her care led him to sacrifice his preferred solitude and take students in his studio. A frequent exhibitor in the Academy's annuals, he received the Benjamin Altman Prize in 1917 and the Saltus Medal for Merit in 1921.
Several years after returning from Europe, Davis adopted a lighter, freer style and began concentrating on cloud studies, often with the rising horizon of a high green hill. His focus in his paintings on the Connecticut landscape and his active role in founding the Mystic Art Association in 1913 lent him an identification with the area so strong that he was known as "the dean of Mystic painters."
Traveling to Paris by way of Scotland, Davis began work at the Académie Julian under Gustav Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre. Not long after arriving, however, he visited the Barbizon region, where the appeal of the landscape led him to neglect his formal studies and turn away from figure painting. Davis began showing his landscapes at the Salon and spending his summers in the French countryside. He married a French woman, Angèle G. Legarde, in 1884 and stayed in France for another six years. He also maintained ties with the New York art world. Davis was elected to the Society of American Artists in 1886, and in 1887 Reichard and Company, New York, presented an exhibition of his work.
Davis settled in Mystic, Connecticut, upon his return to America and soon established a close relationship with the New York dealer William Macbeth. When his wife became ill in the mid-1890s, the expenses of her care led him to sacrifice his preferred solitude and take students in his studio. A frequent exhibitor in the Academy's annuals, he received the Benjamin Altman Prize in 1917 and the Saltus Medal for Merit in 1921.
Several years after returning from Europe, Davis adopted a lighter, freer style and began concentrating on cloud studies, often with the rising horizon of a high green hill. His focus in his paintings on the Connecticut landscape and his active role in founding the Mystic Art Association in 1913 lent him an identification with the area so strong that he was known as "the dean of Mystic painters."
