Vestie Davis.
(1903-1978, Maryland and New York)
Freak Show, Coney Island.
1974.
Signed and dated lower right.
Oil on canvas.
Excellent condition.
Image is 30"w x 24"h.
Frame is 31.5"w x 25.75"h.
Prov: ex. Collection of Victor Niederhoffer.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est.$5,000-$8,000.
Ship: $75

 Vestie Davis was born in Baltimore in 1903. As a youngster he was talented in both music and art. Davis served in the United States Navy from 1921 to 1928, and saw service in the China Sea. At the age of twenty-five, Davis moved to New York City, first living in lower Manhattan, eventually moving to the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn in 1947. He worked in a variety of diverse occupations including train conductor, private detective, newsstand operator, embalmer, and church organist. Davis also worked as a barker and ticket taker for Coney Island freak shows and joy rides, an association which frequently showed up in his paintings, including the one offered here. This painting is extremely large for a Davis work.

Davis began painting in 1947, after a conversion experience looking in an art gallery window on 57th Street. "One day in 1947 I was walking on 57th Street and came to a big gallery. I looked in, saw some pictures I liked, and said to myself, 'I can paint like that.' So I walked into an artist's material store, " Davis recalled.

Davis focused his art on New York City landmarks. He began by painting pictures from calendars and postcards. Eventually he painted from black and white photographs he would take in a panorama that would show a broad view of the desired subject. His paintings are bright and graphic, and by using sparse detail in the foreground and background, draw the viewer's attention to the middle of the work. His canvases are frequently densely populated with cartoon-like silhouettes, because Davis believed that the more people he put in a picture, the faster it sold.

Davis's work was featured in Vestie Davis's New York, American Folk Art Museum, October 20, 2009-November 7, 2010, which described his work thusly: "The New York of Vestie Davis is a bright, sparkling place with impressive and diverse landmark buildings, bridges, parks, and beaches. It is a hub of civic, business, and recreational activity chronicled in meticulously detailed pictures from the 1950s through the 1970s. Davis predicted that some of his favorite sites would not survive the evolving needs of the city, and he faithfully rendered them with this in mind."