William R. Davis

B. 1956 in Somerville, MA; currently resides Harwich, MA

William R. Davis is a preeminent contemporary marine artist in the United States. He has spent the majority of his life on Cape Cod and is primarily a self-taught artist. Intrigued and inspired by art history, Davis poured over maritime paintings from the 18th and 19th centuries and developed technical skills while slowly achieving his own artistic style. Early on, Davis’s marine paintings focused on scenes and imagery of coastal New England and were very connected to his early American influences, especially Luminists Martin Johnson Heade, Fitz Hugh Lane, James Bard and Antonio Jacobsen. Desiring further challenges artistically and through the influence of fellow painters Don Demers and Joseph McGurl, he began to work en plein air with wonderful results. Davis is also attracted to the seductive and luminous nature of sunrise and sunset, painting them masterfully and passionately; hence, they tend to develop into his most dramatic and striking works.

Davis is represented by galleries on Cape Cod and Nantucket, his paintings hang in esteemed private and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad. He was part of the traveling exhibition Sea to Shining Sea and most recently The Subject is Light: The Henry and Sharon Martin Collection of Contemporary Realist Paintings. Davis has been included in several books devoted to maritime art, and a multitude of articles and critical essays have been written about his work.