| Notes |
- James Edward Davis was an experimental filmmaker. As well as filming the estate of his friend Frank Lloyd Wright, he made films of the light refractions caused by his plastic sculptures
He spent much time in Paris in the twenties where he studied art under Andre Lhote, a notable cubist who was known as one of the great art teachers of the time. At this point in time Davis was a painter, drawer, and sculptor. He brought back a cubist influence to New York and was a friend of one of the first American abstract painters, John Marin.
In 1945 he met Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who had been a Professor at the Bauhaus, another important artist and great teacher. Moholy-Nagy was very taken with Davis' work at the time and the influence was joint.
Davis believed himself to be in a long line of great artist working with and understanding light. He was a filmmaker of light in a time when few others were (a notable exception being Oskar Fischinger), and was a great influence on another friend of his, Stan Brakhage. Brakhage dedicated his film, "Text of Light" to Jim Davis.
Whilst Jim Davis was arguably one of the great American abstract filmmakers, he was a very publicity-shy man and therefore failed to get much distribution and critical attention. What remains of his work we have to thank Stan Brakhage for bringing to the public attention.
Source: IMDb Mini Biography By: Matthew Scott
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4691462/
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Obituary, New York Times, September 21, 1974, page 32:
http://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/21/archives/james-davis-dead-abstract-artist-73.html
Obituary/memorial, Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. 75, Dec 3 1974, page 26:
https://books.google.com/books?id=JRVbAAAAYAAJ&lpg=RA2-PA16&ots=xiS4GBGtfa&dq=james%20edward%20davis%201974&pg=RA2-PA16#v=onepage&q=james%20edward%20davis%201974&f=false
In-depth biography and appreciation:
https://modernarmada.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/the-genius-history-forget-james-edward-davis-jim-davis/
A collection of James Edward Davis' papers (consisting of correspondence, photographs, drawings, sketches and designs, typescripts, exhibition announcements and clippings) is held at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/james-edward-davis-papers-7390
The collection held by the Smithsonian includes a transcript of a tape-recorded interview with James E. Davis on August 10, 1971 as part of an oral history project. The interview was conducted at James E. Davis' home in Princeton, New Jersey by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The entire transcript can be viewed online at https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-james-edward-davis-12463#transcript
The opening part of the interview, dealing with James E. Davis' background in West Virginia, was as follows:
PC: PAUL CUMMINGS
JD: JAMES DAVIS
PC: It's August 10, 1971, Paul Cummings talking to James Davis in his house in Princeton, New Jersey. Could we start with where you were born and some kind of family background and how you happened to come to Princeton, and so on? We don't have all of that.
JD: I'm a hillbilly from way back, a hillbilly from West by God Virginia.
PC: From where again?
JD: West by God Virginia. Most people seem to confuse Virginia and West Virginia as the same thing. And I tell them that they are very different. The Virginians look down their noses at us. We're the unfashionable Virginians. And I always make it clear that I am a hillbilly.
PC: Where were you born, then?
JD: Clarksburg, West Virginia, on June 4, 1901. I had my seventieth birthday this year so I joined the Methuselah club. Now as to how I happened to come to Princeton: One of my great, great, great, great-grandfathers (I don't know how far back) was John Horner. He was one of the six white men who first rode in here on horseback when Princeton was still a wilderness. He had a pottery down here at the other end of town, the east end. It's still called Jugtown after the Horner pottery. He made the bricks for Nassau Hall and gave some of his land to Princeton. My father's mother is a Horner. She was always talking about the Horners and she always wanted somebody to go to Princeton. My branch of the Horners had gone West after the Revolution and they settled in western Virginia. They lived in this little town called Lumberport. There were so many of the Horners out there that they tell a story about one Christmas (they were all Baptists) they had a Christmas celebration with a tree and lots of presents for everybody. At the Christmas celebration they were giving out the presents -- John Horner, Mary Horner, Jimmy Horner, Paul Horner. Finally some old farmer in the back piped up and said, "Cut down the damn tree and give it to the Horners." That was typical. They were all over. So I think that's the reason I came to Princeton. Now on my mother's side the family names was Holmes. They were Scotch-Irish. My grandfather Holmes had gone to China in the 1960's. Actually his brother, who was my great-uncle, had gone before that as a missionary. The Chinese world had been opened up. So my great-uncle wrote and said, "Come on over. You can make some money over here." So my grandfather went over. This was during the time of the Tonkin Rebellion. So I was then afterwards always brought up to consider . . . my grandfather Holmes said, "A Chinese gentleman is so far superior to any other human being that there's no comparison." And the more I have learned from taking George Rowley's teaching in Chinese art and everything I have come to the conclusion that he was quite right. Chinese painting is still my favorite of all of the arts of the past.
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1901 - 1974 (73 years)
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