Promised Gifts from the John Davis Collection

This selection of paintings, sculptures, and drawings is part of a larger promised gift by John Davis, a Lexington-based collector and former art dealer with a rich history of creativity and patronage. 
 

Davis is perhaps best known to locals as the man who created the glitz and glamour of the legendary Johnny Angel on Main Street in Lexington in the mid-1970s, a discotheque that rivaled Studio 54 in New York City. It was a sanctuary where socialites and scenesters could converge for nights filled with music, art, and desirous energy. 
 

In the 1980s, Davis opened a gallery in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, later moving to the SoHo district of Manhattan where he exhibited paintings by Louise Fishman and sculptures by La Wilson, among others. In the late 90s, Davis became a pioneer in the upstate town of Hudson, New York, opening his third eponymous gallery and continuing to exhibit the diverse works of artists he championed. These include Jake Berthot, Katherine Bradford, Farrell Brickhouse, Henry Faulkner, Brenda Goodman, Benjamin Pritchard, Theodore Roszak, and the previously mentioned Fishman and Wilson—examples of “hands-on” practitioners whose works revel in materiality and formal investigation.
 

The Museum is very appreciative of John’s loan of these works for exhibition now, affording viewers a glimpse of a generous future donation that will empower our collection in meaningful ways—adding many artists not currently represented and building on strengths in our holdings of American abstraction and assemblage sculpture.

 

IMAGE: Henry Faulkner, Self Portrait, circa 1970s, oil on Masonite. Courtesy of John Davis.