Randall Davey

Randall Davey was an influential painter who developed a distinct style of American art with other New York artists at the beginning of the 20th century. He used bold lines and bright colors to capture everyday subjects in addition to scenes of nature, still lifes, nudes, and his favorite sport, polo.

Randall Vernon Davey was born in New Jersey in 1887. His father was a school superintendent and wanted him to pursue a law degree. However, after attending Cornell University for two years, Davey left to study art in New York. There he met Robert Henri, founder of the Ashcan School of realist painters. The two developed a close relationship, and Davey spent the next several years painting and teaching classes with Henri in Europe and the United States. 

Randall Davey received several major recognitions in the following years. In 1913, he was included in the landmark Armory Show in New York, considered to be the introduction of modern art to America. In 1915, he received an Honorable Mention at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, a major world's fair. The same year he won the second Julius Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy of Design. 

With the entry of the United States into World War I, Randall Davey fled to Cuba to avoid the draft. By 1919, feeling that his career had stagnated, he and fellow artist John Sloan took an extended road trip to New Mexico in search of artistic inspiration. Davey fell in love with the area and purchased an old mill in Santa Fe, where he lived for the next forty years.

While settled permanently in New Mexico, Randall Davey took teaching positions at art schools around the country. He first taught at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1920. Then he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1921 to 1924. While in Kansas City, he participated in local exhibitions and influenced young artists such as Margot Peet, a noted regionalist painter. Davey also taught at the Broadmoor Academy in Colorado during the 1930s, and at the University of Mexico from 1945 to 1956. 

Randall Davey died in a car accident in 1964 at age seventy-seven while driving through California. His studio in Santa Fe has since been converted into a memorial Audubon Center and nature sanctuary.

Davey exhibited widely over his lifetime, and his paintings exist today in the collections of many major museums, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.