William Davis, Landscape Painter
(b. 1812, d. 1873)
Landscape Painter
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
Was born in Dublin in 1812. His father was a solicitor, a profession he intended his son to follow; but the natural taste for art was too strong, and the son was entered as a pupil in the Dublin Society's School. When his studies were completed he set up in Dublin as a portrait painter, and exhibited in the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1833, 1834, and 1835. Meeting, however, with but small success, he went to Liverpool, where better fortune awaited him. He began there by painting portraits, but afterwards confined himself to landscape and still life. He was Professor of Painting in the Liverpool Academy, at that time the most important art society in the provinces; and exhibited in the Royal Academy from 1851 to 1872. In 1870 he removed to London, and died there on the 22nd April, 1873. Davis's landscapes, simple in their composition, were painted with a sincerity and truth, and a delicacy and intensity of feeling, which makes his work among the most interesting of any done by Irish-born artists. He was father of Val Davis, born 1854, and of Lucien Davis, born 1860, both artists practising at the present time in London.
In the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, is a picture, "Wallasey Marsh," by him.