Daffodil

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1920, Davis led an exciting life before pursuing an artistic career. During the 1940’s he published poems, worked as a White House correspondent during the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman administrations and covered local sports news for the Washington Daily News. After entering psychoanalysis in 1949 he began painting and by the late sixties he could afford to pursue art as his full-time career. Known for his stripe paintings, Davis remarked that the stripe as a subject was the same as a painter?s use of a model for a subject. His obsession with the simple stripe led to his manipulating it in all its variations. He considered himself to be a fanatic in the way that he made a special program out of not deviating from the stripe during his career. He likened his own fanaticism to that of Mondrian, a painter who favored rectilinear grids. ?Actually, I?m interested in color to define intervals, in somewhat the same way a map maker uses color to define states or countries. It?s for definition instead of decoration.? – Gene Davis