Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
American, 1920-1985
Davis was born in Washington D.C. in 1920 and spent nearly all his life there. Before he began to paint in 1949, he worked as a sportswriter, covering the Washington Football Team and other local teams. Working as a journalist in the late 1940s, he covered the Roosevelt and Truman presidential administrations, and was often President Truman's partner for poker games. His first art studio was in his apartment on Scott Circle; later he worked out of a studio on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Davis's first solo exhibition of drawings was at the Dupont Theater Gallery in 1952, and his first exhibition of paintings was at Catholic University in 1953. A decade later he participated in the "Washington Color Painters" exhibit at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington, DC, which traveled to other venues around the US, and launched the recognition of the Washington Color School as a regional movement in which Davis was a central figure. The Washington painters were among the most prominent of the mid-century color field painters. Though, he worked in a variety of media and styles, including ink, oil, acrylic, video, and collage, Davis is best known by far for his acrylic paintings (mostly on canvas) of colorful vertical stripes, which he began to paint in 1958. The paintings typically repeat particular colors to create a sense of rhythm and repetition with variations. One of the best-known of his paintings, "Black Grey Beat" (1964), owned by the Smithsonian American Art Museum reinforces these musical comparisons in its title. The pairs of alternating black and grey stripes are repeated across the canvas, and recognizable even as other colors are substituted for black and grey, and returned to even as the repetition of dark and light pairs is here and there broken by sharply contrasting colors.
In 1972 Davis created Franklin's Footpath, which was at the time the world's largest artwork, by painting colorful stripes on the street in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the world's largest painting, Niagara (43,680 square feet), in a parking lot in Lewiston, NY. His "micro-paintings", at the other extreme, were as small as 3/8 of an inch square.
For a public work in a different medium altogether, he designed the color patterns of the "Solar Wall," a set of tubes filled with dyed water and backlit by fluorescent lights, at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Davis began teaching in 1966 at the Corcoran School of Art, where he became a permanent member of the faculty. His works are in the collections of, among others, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN, The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection in Albany, NY, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
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Artist: Gene Davis
Royal Curtain 1980 Signed Limited Edition Lithograph
By Gene Davis
Located in Rochester Hills, MI
Gene Davis
Royal Curtain - 1980
Print - Silkscreen, on Arches archival paper 30'' x 22'' inches
Edition: signed in pencil and marked 180/250
Unframed
Known for his dazzling and ...
Category
1980s Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Zebra, from Series II
By Gene Davis
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Zebra
Portfolio: Series II
Medium: Screenprint on canvas laminated to board
Date: 1969
Edition: 110/150
Frame Size: 30 1/2" x 36 1/2"
Sheet Size: 24" x 30 1...
Category
1960s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Canvas, Screen
Sonata, Minimalist Stripe Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis, American (1920 - 1985)
Title: Sonata
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches paper, signed and numbered in pencil, verso
Edition: 250
Paper Size: 20.75 x 28.5 inc...
Category
1980s Minimalist Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Sweet Carburetor, from Series II
By Gene Davis
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Sweet Carburetor
Portfolio: Series II
Medium: Screenprint on canvas laminated to board
Year: 1969
Edition: 110/150
Frame Size: 36 1/2" x 26 1/2"
Sheet Size:...
Category
1960s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Yoyo, from Series II
By Gene Davis
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Yoyo
Portfolio: Series II
Medium: Screenprint on canvas laminated to board
Date: 1969
Edition: 110/150
Frame Size: 36 1/2" x 26 1/2"
Sheet Size: 30 1/8" x 2...
Category
1960s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Shooting Star 1979 Large Signed Screen Print
By Gene Davis
Located in Rochester Hills, MI
Shooting Star - 1979
Print - Silkscreen 36.5'' x 36.75''
Edition: Signed in pencil, dated and marked 238/250
Unframed
Category
1970s Color-Field Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Royal Curtain
By Gene Davis
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Royal Curtain
Medium: Screenprint on Arches paper
Date: 1980
Edition: 185/250
Frame Size: 35" x 26 1/2"
Sheet Size: 29 3/4" x 21 3/4"
Signature: Hand signed...
Category
1980s Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Shooting Star, Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985)
Title: Shooting Star
Year: 1979
Medium: Lithograph on Arches paper
Edition: 202/250, plus proofs
Size: 37.25 x 37 inches
Condition: Good
Inscription: S...
Category
1980s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Ferris Wheel: abstract modern minimalist color field drawing with rainbow colors
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
This geometric, minimalist print glows in rainbow shades. Vibrant raspberry pink, magenta, yellow, lime green, and sky-blue lines take on the organic quality of handmade paper, resul...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Royal Curtain, Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985)
Title: Royal Curtain
Year: 1980
Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper
Edition: 41/250, plus proofs
Size: 30 x 21.5 inches
Condition: Good
Inscription: Sig...
Category
1980s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Green Giant, Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985)
Title: Giant Green
Year: 1980
Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper
Edition: 43/250, plus proofs
Size: 29.75 x 32.5 inches
Condition: Good
Inscription: Si...
Category
1980s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Black Watch II, signed and numbered 39/150 screen print
By Gene Davis
Located in Brooklyn, NY
This is a signature color-field composition with multiple thin colored stripes created by Gene Davis.
Gene Davis (American, 1920-1985)
Screenprint
Black Watch I, II and III, 1974
...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Archival Paper, Screen
Witch Doctor: abstract modern minimalist color field drawing with rainbow colors
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
Vibrant magenta, yellow, orange, brown, purple, lime green, jungle green, dark green, cerulean, and sky-blue lines take on the organic quality of handmade paper, resulting in this su...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Tightrope: abstract modern minimalist color field drawing with rainbow colors
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
Rainbow shades shine in delicate clusters of vertical lines, in this abstract, geometric lithograph. Vibrant yellow, green, magenta pink, blue and brown take on the organic quality o...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Bullet Proof, from Series I
By Gene Davis
Located in Washington, DC
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Bullet Proof
Portfolio: Series I
Medium: Screenprint on canvas laminated to board
Date: 1969
Edition: AP (one of 25 artist's proofs, aside from the edition ...
Category
1960s Color-Field Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Narcissus Gene Davis minimalist abstract color field lithography with blue
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
Vertical lines in muted colors take on the organic quality of handmade paper, resulting in this subtle iteration of Gene Davis’ iconic color field stripe paintings. The title "Narcis...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Adam's Rib, Minimalist Stripe Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Adam's Rib
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Size: 19 x 27 in. (48.26 x 68.58 cm)
Category
1980s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Sonata, Minimalist Stripe Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis, American (1920 - 1985)
Title: Sonata
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches paper, signed and numbered in pencil, verso
Edition: 250
Paper Size: 20.75 x 28.5 inc...
Category
1980s Minimalist Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Yankee Doodle /// Gene Davis Abstract Geometric Huge Screenprint Colorful Modern
By Gene Davis
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Gene Davis (American, 1920-1985)
Title: "Yankee Doodle"
*Signed and numbered by Davis in pencil lower right
Year: 1972
Medium: Original Screenprint on wove paper, laid down t...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Canvas, Screen
Yellow Jack, Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985)
Title: Yellow Jack
Year: 1979
Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper
Edition: 241/250, plus proofs
Size: 22.5 x 25 inches
Condition: Excellent
Inscription:...
Category
1970s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Green Giant, Minimalist Print by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Green Giant
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil verso
Edition: 250
Paper Size: 26 x 28.5 inches
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Carousel, Minimalist Stripe Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Carousel
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Image 13.5 x 20 inches
Paper Size: 17 x 24 inches
Category
1980s Color-Field Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Lilac, Minimalist Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Lilac
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Paper Size: 21.75 x 30 inches
Category
1980s Minimalist Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Royal Curtain, Minimalist silkscreen by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis, American (1920 - 1985)
Title: Royal Curtain
Year: 1980
Medium: Silkscreen in Colors on Arches, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Paper Size: 29.75 x 21....
Category
1980s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Lilac, Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985)
Title: Lilac
Year: 1980
Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper
Edition: 247/250, plus proofs
Size: 22.5 x 28.5 inches
Condition: Good
Inscription: Signed a...
Category
1980s Abstract Geometric Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Homage to Barnett Newman /// Gene Davis Abstract Geometric Minimal Screenprint
By Gene Davis
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Gene Davis (American, 1920-1985)
Title: "Homage to Barnett Newman"
*Signed and dated by Davis in pencil lower right
Year: 1979
Medium: Original Screenprint on unbranded soft-...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Homage to Barnett Newman
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
A very good impression of this color screenprint on white wove paper. Signed and numbered 248/250 in pencil by Davis. Based on a series of oil paintings made by Davis, completed afte...
Category
1970s Color-Field Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Color, Screen
Carousel 1980 Signed Limited Edition Lithograph
By Gene Davis
Located in Rochester Hills, MI
Artist Name: Gene Davis
Title: Carousel
Year: 1980
Medium Type: Lithograph
Size-Width Size-Height: 17" x 23"
Signed Edition Size: Signed in pencil, and marked 172/250
Known for ...
Category
1980s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Home Run: abstract modern minimalist color field drawing with rainbow colors
By Gene Davis
Located in New York, NY
Rainbow shades shine in this abstract, color field print. Vibrant red, yellow, orange, purple, and green lines take on the organic quality of handmade paper, resulting in this subtle...
Category
1970s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Gene Davis Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Color Field Lithograph 1972
By Gene Davis
Located in Dallas, TX
Gene Davis Large Scale Lithograph on Archival paper Signed and numbered in pencil.
Titled Yankee Doodle and executed in 1972.
Original frame with plexiglass.
Printed by Fine Creati...
Category
Mid-20th Century Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Paper
Gene Davis Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Black Witch Series Serigraph 1974
By Gene Davis
Located in Dallas, TX
Large scale serigraph by Gene Davis 'Black Witch Series' on archival paper signed and numbered in pencil, 24 of 150. Executed in 1974, 72" x 45" in the original frame with plexiglass...
Category
Mid-20th Century Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Paper
Banjo, Abstract Minimalist Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Gene Davis’s captivating Color Field compositions of vertical lines and evolving color is demonstrated in this print. Alternating from blue to yellow and then red, the vertical strip...
Category
1980s Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Ferris Wheel, Minimalist Abstract Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis
Title: Ferris Wheel
Year: 1980
Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Image Size: 18 x 25.5 in...
Category
1980s Abstract Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Banjo, Minimalist Stripe Lithograph by Gene Davis
By Gene Davis
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Gene Davis, American (1920 - 1985)
Title: Banjo
Year: 1981
Medium: Lithograph on Arches Paper, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 250
Size: 21.25 x 28.5 in. (53.98 x 7...
Category
1980s Color-Field Gene Davis Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Gene Davis prints and multiples for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Gene Davis prints and multiples available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of prints and multiples to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue, orange, pink and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Gene Davis in lithograph, screen print, canvas and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Gene Davis prints and multiples, so small editions measuring 20 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Larry Zox, Louisa Chase, and Robert Kelly. Gene Davis prints and multiples prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $960 and tops out at $12,000, while the average work can sell for $2,448.