‘Noah Davis’s first ever retrospective tells the story of an artist who relentlessly painted the haunting beauty of Black lives’ by Nicole Young
2026
I have only cried twice at a museum. The first time was standing in front of Bisa Butler’s larger-than-life quilt portrait of Salt-N-Pepa at an exhibition in New York. The second time was in the elegy room of the Noah Davis retrospective, currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
I did not expect to be moved as much as I was, not knowing much about Davis before stepping onto the first floor wing. The PMA show is the final stop of the first-ever museum retrospective of Davis’ art.
The exhibit begins in the hallway, with a floor to ceiling collection of photographs, interspersed with Davis’ handwritten letters and notes.It’s a collage of Black life — some subjects smiling, holding hands, making silly faces, a picture of Davis himself with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, above a handwritten to-do list that includes, “Spend less money on cigarettes more money on groceries & flowers, books.”
