By Darla McCammon

Pictured is “Children, Dogs, and Pony” by Arthur Bowen Davies.

Arthur Bowen Davies was included in the Ashcan artists as he touched on and helped instigate one of their more famous protests; however, his art later developed in a different direction.

His life was interesting and tumultuous. He was born in Utica, N.Y., and began drawing and painting at a young age. When he was 15, Davies attended an exhibit featuring many of the Hudson River School of artists. Davies was deeply affected by their work and impressed with the landscapes.

Moving to Chicago with his family gave him the opportunity to study at two art schools before he moved to New York, where he met many of the Ashcan artists. Like most of them, he worked as an illustrator for magazines as he developed his talent as a formal artist. Davies met and married Virginia Merriwether, whose wealthy family helped her conceal that she had eloped when young and murdered her husband on their honeymoon when she found out he was a gambler, abuser and a drug addict.

Her family coerced Davies into a prenuptial agreement so his wife’s money would not be depleted by a starving artist. Davies actually became quite successful in later years and made an income that was comfortable enough for him to have two other wives and children by each, all of which was kept secret from Virginia and her family. (Like I said, a rather tumultuous life.)

If you recall, the Group of Eight included many of the Ashcan artists. Davies was the main painter who led the protest against the National Academy of Design, who had very restrictive rules that alienated these artists and their friends. Most of his fellow protesters were realists, a trademark of the Ashcan artists, but Davies and a few others created more contemporary art. Davies’ art was singularly collected by Lizzie Bliss and Abby Rockefeller, the wealthy founders of the Museum of Modern Art; thus, Davies’ work wound up in the museum and in many collections, and the value of his work climbed dramatically.

Davies irritated some of his former friends from the Ashcan school when he developed an interest in, and even promoted, the developing world of European modernism. His own work touched on this area but though he admired those artists such as Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and Juan Gris, his own work was more moderate and some called it lyrical. He was an enigma with his own work, which leaned to the more conservative expression, yet his tastes and even his own collection leaned more to the avant-garde as he became a strong advocate of modern art in the United States.

His cubism-based modern art did not sell as well as his more romantic works. He was a mystery to critics who considered his more lyrical, lovely works some of the best in the world, yet he wholeheartedly embraced and enjoyed the newest trends in art even though he gave the critics and the public what they demanded of him — beautiful, almost poetic art. He became a paradox in the art world.