Charles H. Davis 
 
 N. A. 
 
 The MACBETH GALLERY 
 
 450 Fifth Avenue New York 
 
[ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/thirtiethanniverOOmacb 
 
Thirtieth 
 cAnniversary Sxhibition 
 
 i8g2 — ig22 
 
 Paintings 
 
 by 
 
 Charles H. Davis, n.a. 
 
 The MACBETH GALLERY 
 
 450 Fifth Avenue New Yoik City 
 
Copyright, 1922 
 WILLIAM MACBETH, Inc. 
 
THE CALL ul' i i iL-. WLS 1 WIND 
 
 Loaned by the Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, 
 Ohio, and reproduced through the courtesy of the 
 Brown-Robertson Co., who own the copyright. 
 
oAcknowledQment to 
 
 Bartlett Arkell, Esq. 
 
 C. D. Armstrong, Esq. 
 
 Dr. T. L. Bennett 
 
 Mrs. C. C. Bovey 
 
 Burr R. Brown, Esq. 
 
 Bruce Art Museum, Greenwich, Conn. 
 
 Butler Art Institute, Youngstown, Ohio 
 
 Mrs. H. A. Everett 
 
 B. W. Gage, Esq. 
 
 W. J. Johnson, Esq. 
 
 Walter D. Makepeace, Esq. 
 
 Burton Mansfield, Esq. 
 
 Minneapolis Institute of Arts 
 
 H. W. Mitchell, Esq. 
 
 Charles F. Palmer, Esq. 
 
 Paul Schulze, Esq. 
 
 Paul Schulze, Jr., Esq. 
 
 David Smyth, Esq. 
 
 William J. Stimmel, Esq. 
 
 whose generous cooperation in 
 lending their pictures has made 
 this exhibition possible. 
 
 The following appreciation is printed by 
 permission of INTERNATIONAL Studio 
 from an article to appear in an early 
 number 
 
Titles of the Paintings 
 
 J 
 
 The Haunted House* 
 
 . I ox I 4 
 
 2 
 
 May Morning . 
 
 34x42 
 
 3 
 
 Spring Twilight* 
 
 . I OX 1 4 
 
 4 
 
 Drifting Light* 
 
 17x21 
 
 5 
 
 In Early May 
 
 . 25x30 
 
 6 
 
 Wings of the Wind . 
 
 36x31 
 
 7 
 
 Now April's Here 
 
 . 25x30 
 
 8 
 
 The First Snow 
 
 20x26 
 
 Q 
 
 Spring on the Hillside 
 
 . 20x36 
 
 lO 
 
 Joyous Day in Spring 
 Winter Morning* 
 
 20x36 
 
 I I 
 
 . 17X21 
 
 12 
 
 The Springtime* 
 
 25X30 
 
 13 
 
 All Hallowe'en 
 
 . 40X50 
 
 14 
 
 Spring Pastoral 
 
 25X30 
 
 I 5 
 
 Autumn Sunshine* 
 
 . I 7X2 I 
 
 i6 
 
 Grey Brothers . 
 
 30X25 
 
 I 7 
 
 Early Summer 
 
 . 20X36 
 
 i8 
 
 Night .... 
 
 17X21 
 
 
 "Bare ruin'd choirs, where 
 
 late 
 
 the sweet birds sang"* 
 
 . 25x30 
 
 20 
 
 On the West Wind . 
 
 
 2 I 
 
 Golden Moonlight 
 
 . 25X30 
 
 22 
 
 Pastoral* 
 
 20X27 
 
 23 
 
 Evening Clouds* 
 
 . 20X36 
 
 V y 
 
 24 
 
 The Call of the West Wind 
 
 40X50 
 
 ^5 
 
 Clouds at Sunset 
 
 . 29X36 
 
 26 
 
 Summer Afternoon . 
 
 18X26 
 
 ^7 
 
 The Pool* 
 
 . 25X30 
 
 28 
 
 A Clearing 
 
 34X42 
 
 29 
 
 Old Pasture 
 
 . 25X30 
 
 30 
 
 Little Grey Home* 
 
 17X21 
 
 31 
 
 Passing Summer 
 
 . 29X36 
 
 *These examples are for sale. 
 
GREY BROTHERS 
 
Charles H. Davis^ N.A. 
 
 cAn Appreciation 
 
 MERICA'S place in contemporary land- 
 
 scape art is so well established as to 
 
 make more than a passing reference 
 to it trite and unnecessary. Critical analy- 
 ses in great number are readily accessible to 
 the student of the work of the best men of 
 our recent past, who, during the closing de- 
 cades of the last century, established a land- 
 scape school that we and those who follow 
 us may always reverence. Inness, Martin, 
 Wyant, Twachtman and Robinson stand 
 out among many other excellent painters as 
 the great landmarks of our art of their time, 
 and the years that have passed since they 
 left us, in spite of "movements," "isms," 
 and "seisms," have but strengthened our 
 respect for them. Pioneers they were, blaz- 
 ing a trail of sanity and beauty that many 
 since have tried, with more or less success, 
 to follow. 
 
 It is still too soon, perhaps, definitely to 
 know who of their successors will in the days 
 to come be ranked with them. Perhaps we 
 have some who, in the final reckoning, will 
 be placed above them. We are still too close 
 to the men themselves, to the individual 
 idiosyncrasies both of painter and painting, 
 to form unbiased estimates of current work. 
 The most natural thing in the world is to 
 like a man's creation because we like the 
 man; it is equally human conversely to dis- 
 like. But it does not tend to a fair judg- 
 ment of the work as art. It is probably true 
 that the personalities of certain men, men 
 with an inordinate appreciation of their own 
 
Charles H. Da^is, N. A. 
 
 IN MAY 
 
 powers, are very real bars to a proper public 
 acceptance of their pictures; and many a 
 second rate picture or worse has been favor- 
 ably received from the studio of an artist 
 well loved by his fellow men. No one is 
 wholly free from such preconceptions, how- 
 ever strongly he may strive to keep them 
 out of analytical discussion. And so it is 
 that in all critiques of an artist at close 
 range, we must recognize the probable pres- 
 ence of the personal bias. Time alone, long 
 time, with its sifting perspective, will answer 
 for our successors the problems about pres- 
 ent-day work that confront us now. 
 
 However all these things may be, it is cer- 
 tain that we have several sterling painters, 
 artists to their finger tips, whose efforts are 
 leading toward the definite goal of real 
 achievement. It is not the purpose of this 
 
The Macbeth Gallery 
 
 11 1L£ SlM^ING l IML 
 
 brief article to enter into a discussion of who 
 they are, why they are, or why this man or 
 that is not included in the list. Each of a 
 score of painters can rally any number of 
 staunch supporters to his claim to foremost 
 place in the ranks of men still producing. 
 It would be unprofitable to champion the 
 cause of one against another in such a non- 
 productive debate. 
 
 Probably no one would be less likely to 
 put himself forward for honors of this sort 
 than Charles H. Davis. Living a retiring 
 and studious life in the beautiful surround- 
 ings of his Connecticut home, he is quite 
 content to work out his own salvation, and 
 to let time decide as to what his place is to 
 be. He belongs to no clique, has no pet 
 theories, and is far more concerned about 
 the production of works of art than in a 
 
Charles H. Da^is, N. A. 
 
 discussion as to the school in which they 
 shall be classified. Occasionally he makes 
 it a point to see and study special exhibitions 
 both in New York and elsewhere, and each 
 of his excursions to the city is never con- 
 sidered complete without a few hours at 
 least in the company of the masters in the 
 Metropolitan Museum. For he has a very 
 vital interest in the best work of the past 
 and is as keen a student of the Old Masters 
 as of the creations of his contemporaries. 
 The rest of the year, except when an oc- 
 casional art jury demands his service, is 
 spent in solving his own problems in his own 
 way. He is very close to nature, a beautiful 
 nature, and his studio is set amidst the hills 
 and trees that form the familiar motive of 
 his canvases. 
 
 Davis uses his landscape forms almost en- 
 tirely as an expression of mood. He paints 
 not a tree or hillside in spring, but the spirit 
 of spring itself ; not the tangled, tawny un- 
 dergrowth of ravines and woods, but the 
 somber quiet of a day in fall ; not the snowy 
 approach to the hill-top farm, but the 
 mystery of winter with a hint of snow in the 
 air. And yet, with all their spiritual quality, 
 his pictures are as solidly substantial as we 
 could wish. We can walk on Davis' hills, 
 his rocks have weight, his trees mass, his 
 water depth. He gives us nature and the 
 spirit of nature at the same time, and while 
 one could not exist without the other, we 
 find the combination all too rarely. And we 
 find it most often in the best of the work of 
 the past that has survived. 
 
The Macbeth Gallery 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 But while Davis both now and for most of 
 his art career has worked apart from his 
 fellow painters, he has never been without 
 keen interest in them and in their work, and 
 this has been generously reciprocated. As 
 long ago as the early '90s it is recorded that 
 when one of his pictures came before the 
 Jury of the National Academy of Design, it 
 won the favor of Inness and Wyant, both 
 members of the hanging committee, who 
 tried to secure for it the post of honor, an 
 effort in which, it is further recorded, they 
 did not succeed. This picture was 'The 
 Deepening Shadows," bought at that ex- 
 hibition by Thomas B. Clarke, Esq., who 
 with Inness was one of Davis' earliest and 
 most cordial supporters. 
 
 Davis' pictures of the '80s and '90s how- 
 ever have little in common with his work of 
 
Charles H. Davis, N. A. 
 
 A CLEARING 
 
 today. He comes of a thoughtful family, — 
 his father was a schoolmaster of the old 
 type, — and it is not surprising that his 
 earlier efforts were directed to a somber in- 
 terpretation of nature in her quieter moods. 
 'The Edge of the Village," his Salon picture 
 of 1883, later exhibited in this country, well 
 reflects the direction of the young artist's 
 mood at that time. His first exhibition in 
 America, made the preceding year, when he 
 was but twenty-seven years old, was entirely 
 composed of pictures of this type. But a 
 dozen years later a different note began to 
 appear ; more light, a higher color-range, and 
 perhaps a more joyous spirit, crept into his 
 pictures. From then on they showed the 
 presence of a firmer hand, a greater strength, 
 and a simplification both of subject and of 
 rendering. Forsaking the intimate details 
 
The Macbeth Gallery 
 
 MAY MORNING 
 
 of the French landscape which until then 
 had dominated his thought, he devoted his 
 attention to the broader aspects of nature, 
 to the moods of rain-filled clouds over up- 
 lands, to the song of birds in spring, to the 
 depth of the New England winter. 
 
 For Davis is as versatile in his subjects as 
 he is in the methods he uses to depict them. 
 For a time his cloud motives interested him 
 so greatly that he came in the popular mind 
 to be associated with them to the exclusion 
 of the many other subjects that he painted 
 with equal enthusiasm. It is certain that 
 this growing reputation as a painter of 
 clouds troubled him, and perhaps it is on 
 that account that in recent years he has 
 unconsciously devoted more and more of 
 his time to spring, summer and winter sub- 
 jects, with other than clouds as their chief 
 
Charles H. Da^is, N. A. 
 
 characteristic. One of his finest successes, 
 "The Sunny Hillside," which was awarded 
 the Corcoran Silver Medal at the exhibition 
 in Washington two years ago, was as far 
 from the type of picture usually associated 
 with his name as anything could possibly be. 
 In its subtlety of form and color it was a 
 picture that Twachtman would have liked, 
 and indeed that would apply to many of his 
 recent efforts. There is something in most 
 of his more poetic canvases that uncon- 
 sciously recalls the work of Twachtman's 
 later days, though they are far from imita- 
 tive of that great master's art. Instinctively 
 we try to interpret the new in the terms of 
 what has gone before, and it is to Twacht- 
 man if to anyone that we must turn to find 
 Davis' forerunner among the men of the 
 preceding generation. Perhaps that is why 
 Twachtman admirers have immediately 
 turned to Davis with keen appreciation, or 
 perhaps such a reaction is merely the na- 
 tural association of quality with quality. 
 
 Since his earliest American exhibition 
 honors have come to Davis wherever his 
 pictures have been shown, juries uniting to 
 recognize in him something almost always 
 worthy of special distinction. He is repre- 
 sented in most of our leading museums, 
 many of which recognized his merit some 
 time before the general public responded to 
 his highly individual art. There has been 
 no lack of substantial appreciation in recent 
 years, however, and there are few private 
 collections of any importance in which his 
 work does not occupy a conspicuous posi- 
 
The Macbeth Gallery 
 
 xi.v-v \[^RII/S HERE 
 
 tion. And, at that, his pictures are not 
 fundamentally exhibition canvases, as the 
 warm place they take in many private homes 
 that do not aspire to the collector's high 
 estate, amply indicates. They are pictures 
 to be lived with day after day with an en- 
 joyment that only a beautiful thing of the 
 highest merit can possibly give. 
 
 So whether Davis belongs at the top of 
 the list or not really matters very little, or 
 not at all. And many years shall pass before 
 we know. But in the meantime we can be 
 sure that he is a splendid painter and a very 
 real creative artist. Without indulging in 
 too fulsome praise, in spite, perhaps, of 
 strong temptation, let us be content to enjoy 
 him for what he means to us now, and, like 
 him, let time decide where his place eventu- 
 ally is to be. 
 
Biographical 
 
 Notes 
 
 BORN, Amesbury, Massachusetts, Jan. 7, 1856. 
 Pupil of Otto Grundmann and Boston Museum 
 School; Boulanger and Lefebvre, Paris. Member of 
 the National Academy of Design, New York. 
 
 Represented in the Pennsylvania Academy of the 
 Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Corcoran Gallery of Art, 
 Washington, D. C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
 New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Wadsworth 
 Athenaeum, Hartford; Art Gallery, Omaha; Boston 
 Art Museum ; Art Museum, Syracuse ; Art Museum, 
 Cincinnati; City Art Museum, St. Louis; Institute of 
 Arts, Minneapolis, Minn. ; Art Museum, Worcester, 
 Massachusetts; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh; 
 Hackley Gallery, Muskegon, Mich.; Butler Art In- 
 stitute, Youngstown, Ohio; Bruce Art Museum, 
 Greenwich, Conn. 
 
 Honorable Mention, Salon, Paris, 1887; Silver 
 Medal, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889; Palmer 
 Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, 1890; Medal, Massa- 
 chusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, Boston, 
 1890; Medal, Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893 ; 
 Grand Gold Medal, Atlanta Exposition, 1895; Gold 
 Medal, American Art Association, New York, 1896; 
 Cash Prize, American Art Association, 1897; Potter 
 Palmer Prize, Art Institute of Chicago, 1898; Bronze 
 Medal, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900; Lippin- 
 cott Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 
 Philadelphia, 1901 ; Silver Medal, Pan-American Ex- 
 position, Buffalo, 1 901; Silver Medal, Universal 
 Exposition, St. Louis, 1904; Silver Medal, Interna- 
 tional Exposition, 1910; Gold Medal, Panama- 
 Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 191 5; Second W. 
 A. Clark Prize and Corcoran Silver Medal, Corcoran 
 Gallery, Washington, 1920; Saltus Medal, National 
 Academy of Design, 1921. 
 
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