Davis, Harry A. Ferry Street, Lafayette, 1970

Information

Harry Davis was born in Hillsboro, in Fountain County, Indiana, and spent his early years in Brownsburg, in Hendricks County. In 1938 he received a three-year fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome, and then was artist-in-residence at Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1941. Davis was a combat artist in Italy during World War II. He served with a camouflage unit, 1942–46, in North Africa. Many of his works of this period are a part of the Pentagon’s collection of war sketches. He began teaching at Herron Art Institute in 1946, holding a professorship from 1970–83.

Harry Davis was born in Hillsboro, in Fountain County, Indiana, and spent his early years in Brownsburg, in Hendricks County. In 1938 he received a three-year fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome, and then was artist-in-residence at Beloit College in Wisconsin in 1941. Davis was a combat artist in Italy during World War II. He served with a camouflage unit, 1942–46, in North Africa. Many of his works of this period are a part of the Pentagon’s collection of war sketches. He began teaching at Herron Art Institute in 1946, holding a professorship from 1970–83.

Davis traveled throughout Indiana recording architectural landmarks and historic sites, and painted these in a contemporary realistic style. He said that painting old buildings had been a mission that he had to perform. His work is an important documentation of architecture of the American Midwest; many of the buildings that he had painted have since been torn down in the name of progress. According to Arthur Weber, dean emeritus of the Herron School of Art & Design, Davis “forces us to reconstruct mentally a cultural inheritance, and in an uncanny way, his paintings seem to anticipate our inevitable reactions and feelings. While his paintings are certainly realistic, they go strangely beyond realism.”

• Ferry Street, Lafayette, 1970
• 24″ x 32″
• Art Museum of Greater Lafayette
• Keywords: paintings, urban landscapes, cultural landscapes, acrylic on canvas
• Subjects: outdoors, streets, architecture, houses, fences, windows, stairs

This is a finely detailed streetscape with pointillist brushstrokes—small dots of color placed so closely together that the eye automatically sees them as a whole. Davis told the Evansville Press, “I was inspired by the contrast in architectural styles, shapes, and colors of this group of buildings, which I happened to see in strong sunlight on one of my visits to Lafayette. With the angle of light and the position I chose, I could see a strong element of design, the triangle on which to build my composition.”

Some Points To Consider

• Ask students if they think that Davis’s mission to paint old buildings makes his paintings valuable to Indiana. Why or why not? (Art 4.4.1, 4.4.2)
• Ask students what the most common method is today for documenting architecture and buildings. Why do they think photography is preferred? How would a photograph, instead of this painting, provide a sensory reaction to this scene? Do they think that this painting goes strangely beyond realism? (Art 4.3.1, 4.4.1)
• Show students a painting by Georges Seurat, a French painter. Ask them to describe the differences between the brushstrokes in it and those in the painting by Davis. (Art 4.7.3)

Suggested Activities for Classroom Follow-Up

• Let students make pointillistic drawings using cotton swabs, paintbrushes, and fine-point pens to paint the dots of color. Remind them to use complementary colors together to make a gray or vibrating area. Encourage them to try drawing with different tools so they can see that the smaller they make the dots, the sharper the detail will be, just like in a computer image.