Identity:

Henry William Banks Davis was a London painter and sculptor.

Life:

Davis specialised in landscape and animal painting, depicting mainly images of Wales, Scotland and Northern France. In his early years he was influenced by the careful observation and precise delineation of the Pre-Raphaelites, and later by the larger scale and broader facture of Edwin Landseer and Rosa Bonheur.

Between 1852 and 1904 Davis was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. In London, he also exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, British Institution, New Gallery, Dudley Art Gallery, Fine Art Society, Agnew and Sons Gallery, Carfax and Co. Gallery, Arthur Tooth and Sons Gallery and at the Society of British Artists, which elected JW its President in 1886. He also showed his works further afield at the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham, Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool and Manchester City Art Gallery. He was elected A.R.A. in 1873 and R.A. in 1877, and became a member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts in 1893. His Returning to the Fold and Approaching Night were purchased by the Chantrey Bequest in 1880 and 1899.

Davies was amongst those invited to a dinner organised by W. C. Symons to congratulate JW on becoming an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Munich, a dinner which was to be held at the Criterion in Piccadilly on 1 May 1889 (#00807).

Bibliography:

Saar;Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-61; Wood, Christopher, Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Woodbridge, 1971; Johnson, J., and A. Greutzner, The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Woodbridge, 1980.