Background
Henry Davis was born on August 26, 1833 in London, United Kingdom, the son of E.J. Davis of the Middle Temple.
Henry Davis was born on August 26, 1833 in London, United Kingdom, the son of E.J. Davis of the Middle Temple.
Henry received his art training in the Royal Academy School, where he was awarded two silver medals.
Although Davis began his career as a painter of Pre-Raphaelite inspired pictures in the 1850s and 1860s, he found greatest fame with his large landscapes inhabited by sheep and cattle which sold for considerable sums during his lifetime. He exhibited his large paintings widely and even showed a small number of sculptures.
Moreover, Henry was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1873 and a full Member in 1877 and two of his pictures were bought under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest in 1880 and 1899. His close attention to detail and high level of observation of his subjects often brought his work close in quality to that of Richard Ansdell with whose work he was often favourably compared. His landscapes were usually set in Northern France or in Wales and in the highlands of Scotland.
Davis was the British Delagate to the Fine Arts Jury in Berlin in 1896, and Vice President of the International Jury of Painting and of Group 2, Fine Arts. Mr. Davis was also a member of the Fine Arts Jury at the Universal Exposition at Paris in 1889, and served as President of the International Jury of Fine Arts at Chicago in 1893. He was the member of the Superior Jury at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1897 and 1903. The artist died on December 1, 1914 in Radnorshire.
Henry William Banks Davis adhered to the artistic traditions of Romanticism and Realism.
Henry became the member of the Royal Academy in 1873.
