David Davies (artist)

David Davies ( born May 21, 1864 in Ballarat, † 26 March 1939 Looe ) was an Australian painter of the Heidelberg School, the first significant Western art movement in Australia.

Life

Davies was born in Victoria as a child of Welsh parents. He was one of six children.

Davies attended art classes at Ballarat School of Mines and Industries (now University of Ballarat ). Later, one of his paintings, The Burden and Heat of the Day, bought by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. In 1886 he enrolled at Frederick McCubbin at the National Gallery of Victoria. One of his students' work from the period is Study of Male Nude ( 1887). In the following years he studied with George Frederick Folingsby.

1890 the artist left Australia to study in Paris with Jean -Paul Laurens. On 18 December 1891 he married his fellow student Sophia Janet Davies at the British Embassy. Shortly after the wedding the couple moved to St Ives, England. In 1893 she returned to Australia and settled in Templestowe, Victoria, down. There, the couple had a daughter, but died a few months after birth. 1896, shortly after the birth of another daughter, the family moved to Cheltenham, Victoria.

In 1897 they returned to England and settled in St Ives. After the birth of a son in January 1900, the family moved several times along the coast, to Carbis Bay, then to Newquay and Tintagel, finally, after Wales.

Presumably in an attempt to improve his health, he moved in 1908 with his family to Dieppe, France. His wife Janet where she taught English at a girls' school. After the outbreak of the First World War she lived in London, but then settled down again in Dieppe. From time to time, Davies left Dieppe to paint with his friend and sponsor Richard Heyworth near Cheltenham and especially in Heyworths studio in Sennybridge in the Brecon Beacons in Wales. His paintings from the period were mainly French villages and landscapes.

In May 1926 Davies held a very successful solo exhibition from Melbourne. In 1932, Davies himself down with his family in Looe. A major exhibition of his work was shown at the Plymouth City Art Gallery.