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David Davies was born on 21 May 1864 at Ballarat, Victoria, son of Thomas Davies, a miner, and wife Mary, nee Harris, both from South Wales. He attended art classes at the Ballarat School of Mines and Industries, probably under J.F. Martell and Thomas Price; exhibited student works in Ballarat and worked briefly for a jeweller, before moving to Melbourne to enrol at the National Gallery of Victoria's School of Design under Frederick McCubbin. After three months he transferred into the School of Painting 1887-90 under George Folingsby. In November 1888 he won the student prize for landscape and spent six months from December 1888 in Ballarat. He exhibited with the Victorian Artists' Society and presumably visited the Heidelberg artists' camp on occasion. In 1890 Davies travelled to Paris, studying at the 'Academie' under Jean-Paul Laurens. He met a fellow student, Janet Sophia Davies, also from Melbourne (her brother Charles owned the Eaglemont estate at Heidelberg), whom he married on 18 December 1891 with and Aby Altson as witnesses. Soon after their marriage the Davies left for St Ives, Cornwall, a popular artists' colony where the predominant style was soft Whistlerian tonality. They returned to Melbourne at Easter 1893 and settled at Templestowe, not far from Heidelberg, and there Davies painted the gentle crepuscular landscape for which he is best known: the major painting of this period, 'Moonrise', 1894, was purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria in 1895. The following year, they moved to Cheltenham, on the bay and then in 1897 Davies took his young family back to St Ives. They moved to Lelant Down Cornwell, in 1898 and Davies began exhibiting in London at the New English Art Club, the Royal Academy and the Ridley Art Club. He moved again, to Carbis Bay, then to Newquay and Tintagel, probably lived in London in 1905 and then in North Wales 1906-08. They then settled in Dieppe, with Janet teaching English, returning to London for the duration of the First World War; and Davies periodically revisited England to paint with a friend in the Cheltenham area or in Wales. He continued to exhibit in England and in 1926 held a very successful exhibition of 73 oils and watercolours at the Fine Art Society's galleries in Melbourne. In 1932 Davies and family moved to Looe in Cornwell where he died on 26 March 1939. JC & FM 1993
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