Cooper Hewitt says...
Ken Davies (American, b. 1925) studied at the Massachusetts School of Fine Arts before earning his BFA from Yale University’s School of Fine Arts in 1950. That year, he also received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation fellowship.
His first solo show was at the Hewitt Gallery in New York in 1951, and every painting sold. In the early 1950s, he sold work in the form of lithograph prints and textile designs through Associated American Artists. In 1962, he found representation with Hirschl & Adler Galleries.
Davies also had a long teaching career. From 1950-1953, he taught at the Whitney School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut. He taught at Paier School of Art in Hamden, Connecticut until 1957 and served as its dean from 1958-1981. He was a visiting professor and dean emeritus at Paier from 1981-1991. He holds an honorary doctoral degree in fine arts (1980) from the New England School of Law.
He co-authored Painting Sharp Focus Still Lifes: Trompe l’Oeil Oil Techniques (with Ellye Bloom, 1975) and authored Ken Davies: Artist at Work (1978).
In 2012, Davies noticed symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and began to create work with the assistance of other painters. He resides with his wife, Maryann Doughan Davies, in Madison, Connecticut. His paintings are in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the Detroit Museum of Fine Arts, among many others.
