Gene Davis is famous for painting lively compositions of thin, vibrantly colored stripes.
Along with Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis was at the center of the Washington, D.C. contingent of Color Field painters known as the Washington Color School. Fascinated by color relationships, Davis delighted in alternating thin bright vertical stripes to create syncopated patterns reminiscent of jazz and bebop.
Interestingly, in an Upstate New York parking lot in 1972 Davis painted Niagara, which, at 43,680 square feet, was the largest painting ever made at the time.
Davis is one of Washington’s greatest artists. His work can be found at major museums worldwide, including the Guggenheim, MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and countless others. Few Washington artists have had such a long reach.
