Kenneth Davies (December 20, 1925 - December 24, 2017) was an American painter based in Madison, Connecticut, known for his '' trompe-l'œil'' work. Ken Davies was born in

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast (Massachusetts), South Coast region. Up throug ...

. He attended Yale University, where he painted his first important oil painting, "Lighthouses in the Alps". The work captured the attention of New York City cultural figure

Lincoln Kirstein Lincoln Edward Kirstein (May 4, 1907 – January 5, 1996) was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, philanthropist, and cultural figure in New York City, noted especially as co-founder of the New York City Ballet. He developed and sus ...

, who helped Davies attain showings of his early works in 1950 at the Hewitt Gallery. He also received a

Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation was founded in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany to operate his estate, Laurelton Hall, in Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. It was designed to be a summer retreat for artists and craftspeople. In 1946 the estate ...

fellowship that year. His first solo show was at the Hewitt Gallery in 1951, and every painting sold.Burlingham, Michael J. (January 2001). "Ken Davies: Abstract realist", ''American Artist'' 65 (702): 24–31. He taught at the Paier School of Art in Hamden, Connecticut. During his forty years there, he taught such notable artists as

Joseph Reboli Joseph Reboli (September 25, 1945 – June 4, 2004) was an American painter based in Stony Brook, New York, known primarily for his oil paintings of local landscapes and subjects from the Three Village area and the East End of Long Island. Bi ...

;Johnson, Deborah J. ''Joseph Reboli'', Museums at Stony Brook, 1998, p. 7. . and eventually became the dean. In 1962, he decided to refocus on his

Still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

painting, and enjoyed further success, with gallery representation from Hirschl & Adler Galleries. His first solo show there was in 1978. Davies' labor-intensive technique involves sable brushes, resulting in paintings that appear almost like photographs, but with trompe-l'œil and Surrealist effects.Raynor, Vivien (October 8, 1989). "Art: How the Japanese Saw the Arrival of the West", '' The New York Times'', p. A38.

References

20th-century American painters 1925 births 2017 deaths Yale University alumni 21st-century American painters People from New Bedford, Massachusetts {{US-painter-1920s-stub