“Art history is full of artists whose careers, cut short by early death, haunt us with their unfulfilled promise. The 20th century is pocked with many such examples, a mere handful of which include Paula Modersohn-Becker (who died at 31); Egon Schiele (28); Bob Thompson (28); Eva Hesse (34); Jean-Michel Basquiat (27).

The 21st century has the painter Noah Davis, now the subject of a big, beautiful exhibition at David Zwirner in Manhattan. He died of a rare cancer in Ojai, Calif., in August 2015, just three months after turning 32.

Talented and charismatic, with a knack for rallying people, Davis was inclusive in his art and his life. He gathered his family and friends around him and refused to commit to a single figurative style or to use photographic images in a formulaic way. Nearly every canvas here is different, and most have an interpretive and painterly openness. Your eyes and mind enter them easily and roam through the different layers of brushwork and narrative suggestion. There’s an unexpected optimism to all this. The paintings also dwell in silence, slow us down and hypnotize.”

Read the full review in 

An artwork by Noah Davis, called Untitled, dated 2015

The New York Times, review by Roberta Smith

“Noah Davis Is Gone; His Paintings Continue to Hypnotize”

Watch curator Helen Molesworth's introduction to 

at David Zwirner, New York, earlier this year.

Vimeo video

A photo of Helen Molesworth introducing Noah Davis's exhibition at David Zwirner, New York, in 2020.

A detail from a painting by Noah Davis, titled 1975 (8), dated 2013.

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Helen Molesworth Introduces Noah Davis

Media

February 16–May 31, 2020

Lisa Yuskavage: Wilderness

Image

The Gallery at Windsor, Florida

Rose Wylie: Let it Settle

“The show is so good—yet so poignantly final—that it leaves you feeling both euphoric and wretched. As art, it stands alone, 100 percent persuasive.

[...]

There was nothing formulaic about Davis’s approach. Even when he was painting mundane domestic scenes, his eye for the subject and his painterly treatment infused them with a sly, soft-pedaled, gently melancholy wonder. One thinks of Fairfield Porter with a little more zing, or of a more nonchalant Peter Doig.

In several images, Davis showed people dwarfed by varieties of magical immensity. He would paint a child in blue pajamas at the foot of a daunting wooden staircase leading to a door emitting a mysterious cloud of colored glitter. Or a man looking at a monumental abstract sculpture on the leafy grounds of a wealthy estate. Or simply the night sky over Los Angeles.”

Read the full review in 

An installation view of the show Noah Davis at David Zwirner, New York, in 2020.

The Washington Post, review by Sebastian Smee

“A New York show reveals a great lost talent”

In this video, Karon Davis, Thelma Golden, Helen Molesworth—who organized the recent 

 of Davis’s work at the gallery in New York—and fellow artist Henry Taylor recall Davis’s singular charisma, and how he used it to turn The Underground Museum from a beautiful dream into reality.

Cover image: Noah Davis, 2009. Photo by Patrick O’ Brien-Smith

Karon Davis, Thelma Golden, Helen Molesworth, and Henry Taylor on the celebrated artist and The Underground Museum

On Noah Davis

Video: On Noah Davis

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.