Davis, James Edward (American/West Virginia, 1901-1974), Untitled Landscape, 1947 and 1958 (likely, the landscape was painted in 1947 and the color added in 1958), watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower right, 19.5 x 14.5 inches, matted and framed 25.75 x 20.25 inches. Provenance: Gift of the Artist to Princeton University; Davis Family Member; a regional higher education institution. James "Jim" Edward Davis was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia and graduated from Princeton in 1923. After continuing his art studies in New York and Paris he taught at a private academy in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. However, he would return to his hometown of Clarksburg each summer where he produced a steady stream of paintings and drawings in his home studio dubbed "The Barn." Despite his obvious skill and quality in the two dimensional arts, he became increasingly obsessed with getting his work "to move." Influenced by the rapid movements of Harlem dancers doing the Charleston this new track found him experimenting with new materials, techniques and equipment to capture what he called "paths of motion." At a private show of Davis' mobiles, reflections and photographs in 1946 Frank Lloyd Wright called these experimental pieces the "answer to everything -- it makes everything else obsolete. This is the direction in which we all must follow." After a friend suggested that film might be the best way to capture moving images, Davis made his first film in 1946 weaving distorted images from nature into his work to created analogies between the real world and the abstract. He gained many admirers in this time, including winning an award at the International Festival of Experimental Films in Belgium in 1949. Currently, his film and photography are in the permanent collections of MoMA and Anthology Film Archives.