LI inspired iconic Port Jefferson artist's works

For Long Island Museum curator Jonathan Olly, American Regionalism has taken on new meaning with the mounting of the Stony Brook institution’s current exhibition “A Century After: The Work of William M. Davis.”

“His studio was on my street,” notes Olly, a Port Jefferson resident, of the self-taught painter admired for his refined portrayals of simple rural life during a time of significant migration to the nation’s large cities. “It is fascinating to see how the area has changed — or not.”

As example, Olly points to a snowy view of the Port Jefferson harbor, captured by the then-72-year-old artist several days before Christmas in 1901. The pristine pastoral scene is depicted unsullied by the smokestacks of the Long Island Lighting Company power station that have dramatically interrupted the local landscape since 1948. In contrast, the house of worship featured in “Lecture Night at the Baptist Church” still stands. “The steps have been changed, but it is largely the same,” says Olly.

The Long Island Musem show is the most comprehensive survey of Davis’ work since his passing a century ago and represents a re-examination of the full breadth of his career. It starts from his early imagery of marine subjects rendered as a 15-year-old cabin boy and a shipbuilding apprentice to the acclaimed politically pointed canvases he created during a decade living and working in Manhattan.

While most of the show’s roughly three-dozen paintings and artifacts are from the museum’s coffers, there are a number of items on loan from members of Davis’ family. Among them is “The Neglected Picture” from 1860. “It is one of three paintings tapping into the anti-Confederate sentiment of the time,” notes Olly. The artist painted Jefferson Davis beneath shattered glass with business cards — one from an undertaker and another, a rope and cordage company — shrewdly tucked into its frame. “It is like burning him in effigy, but an elegant way of doing it.”

The curator also notes that while portraiture, at the time, largely served as “an artist’s bread and butter,” Davis preferred familiar waterfront and countryside scenes and landmarks, an option no doubt afforded him by the art supply business he maintained.

In addition to an image Davis painted of himself in 1860, there is, however, one other portrait included here: Long Island painter William Sydney Mount's “Little Lutie,” a posthumous likeness of Davis' daughter, Lucy, who died at age 6. The portrait bares testament, along with several pieces of correspondence, to the strong friendship the two Setauket-born artists shared.

Taken together, the works also bear testament to America’s rich Regionalist tradition stressing local and small-town themes. “While a chance to reexamine Davis’ legacy,” says Olly, “the show is a great reminder of Long Island’s fascinating and deep artistic history.”