Arthur Davies

Arthur Davies was born in rural Wales in 1893 as an only child he learned independence early and loved nothing better than to lose himself in the wild and unspoilt landscape. Arthur’s joy in nature was translated on to paper his talent was nurtured by two illustrators of children’s books, who took a summer cottage near his home.

He went to Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art just as the First World War started. Enlisting in 1917, Arthur Davies first glimpsed East Anglia on gaining a clerical posting to Cambridge. When he visited Norwich in 1918 he was stunned by the wealth of Studies for his pencils and paints. Norfolk became his permanent home from 1923. Arthur Davies scanned almost every untouched corner of Norfolk and Suffolk to produce a picture of an ancient landscape before the bulldozers moved in.

Arthur Davies has exhibited in the Royal Academy and was elected an RBA by the Royal Society of British Artists. He died in 1988.