The low light, bundled haystacks, and lone dory on calm water seen in Sunrise at Scorton Creek show the influence of the marsh paintings of one of Davis’ most admired Luminists, Martin Johnson Heade. Scorton Creek runs from Sandwich, Massachusetts, into Barnstable Harbor, and today is a draw for kayaking, swimming, and fishing, not to mention an array of coastal birds, like the feathered denizen exploring the sandy shore in the foreground of Davis’ landscape. 

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Largely self-taught, William R. Davis studied the work of American Luminists such as Martin Johnson Heade and Fitz Henry Lane in developing his own personal style. He grew up in Hyannis Port, on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod, and learned to sail in his teens, later applying this firsthand knowledge of the ocean and watercraft to his crisply detailed maritime imagery. In 1987 he had a solo exhibition at the Mystic Maritime Gallery in Mystic, Connecticut, which later bestowed upon him two Awards of Excellence, in 1989 and 1999. He has exhibited paintings at the Copley Society of Boston, the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, John Pence Gallery in San Francisco, the Sharon Arts Center in Peterborough, New Hampshire, and Tree’s Place on Cape Cod. 

Provenance:

Private collection, Connecticut

With Eldred’s, East Dennis, Massachusetts, November 2017

To collection of Abbot W. and Marcia L. Vose, Duxbury, Massachusetts, November 2017 to present

Inscription:

1. (top stretcher in ink) William R. Davis A.S.M.A.
2. (top stretcher in ink) Sunrise at Scorton Creek

Labels:

(handwritten label) Exhibited / Summer 1990 Cape Museum of / Fine Art Dennis MA

Exhibitions:

Cape Museum of Fine Arts, Dennis, Massachusetts, Summer 1990 (now Cape Cod Museum of Art)