Sunday 29 May 2011

Winthrop Stark Davis, more paintings 2/3

Winthrop Stark Davis

(1885-1950)

American painter, printer and illustrator.

27 Chicago Designer.


After Stark Davis' colourful parrots here are some more examples of his art. Birds of paradise, phantasie birds etc.. He must have been very succesful with these compositions in his days, because all pictures I could find show these animals and all are closely resembling in style. For his inspiration (the parrots, aigrettes and gibbons) he must have been also a faithful visitor of Chicago's Lincoln Park ZOO. See also the Linosaurus : http://gerrie-thefriendlyghost.blogspot.com/2010/11/elisabeth-sawyer-norton.html . Today again his paintings (he worked mostly in pastel) fetch high prices in auctions.


Stark Davis will be mostly remembered for his parrots pastels but also for his cooperation with the Lincoln Automobile Co. advertisments. He used (earlier) paintings and motifs for these illustrations that were very popular and famous in the 1920's. I don't know if they actually helped selling Lincoln Cars but the ads stood out.


I think I detect a wink at Japanese printmakers in this Siamese cat, lotus and "falling from the sky" bird.




These unforgettable gibbons (above, almost like a Holy family, my favourite

I found some other pictures but they were are too small to be shown here. Sending more examples of Stark Davis paintings for sharing to g.caspers@hccnet.nl would be very much appreciated.

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