Jeanne Davies
The American folk artist Jeanne Davies was born in 1936, graduated from the Scotch Plains, New Jersey, school system and briefly attended the New York School of Visual Arts.
After living in the mid-west and south as part of her husband Lawrence’s business transfers, the Davies settled in Ambler, Pennsylvania where they have lived since 1964.
In the early 1970′s Jeanne began to paint and sell her work, including primitive portraits, theorems, checkerboards, landscapes and animal paintings. She painted on boards, canvas, glass and furniture and her work sold quickly to antiques dealers, interior decorators, collectors and home furnishing stores.
While selling antiques and artwork at Shupp’s Grove in Adamstown, Pennsylvania in 1976 Jeanne met Joyce Bowes, an antiques and art dealer. Mrs. Bowes was interested in selling Jeanne’s artwork. Their sales agreement was “I’ll paint, you sell.” Mrs. Bowes initially worked on the basis of consigned inventory; later she paid on a COD basis but did not report any customer information to the artist. This arrangement continued for 26 years during which time Jeanne painted and sold 2,004 paintings through Mrs. Bowes for a total of $1,171,628.
Beginning in 2001 the sales volume of Jeanne’s paintings began to decline in the Bowes venue; eventually sales ceased in 2003 and the Bowes-Davies association was terminated. Jeanne effectively retired and painted only for family members. In recent years Jeanne’s paintings have begun to surface at major eastern auction houses such as Pennsylvania’s Pook and Pook and Skinner Inc in Boston. Because Jeanne signed her work “Davies” some confusion has resulted with some of her work being attributed to the New Hampshire artist Albert Webster Davies (1889 to 1967). Sufficient examples of Jeanne’s work have now entered the major arts and antiques reference databases, along with the signature she used consistently on her work, that dealers and collectors are now able to successfully indentify her work.
This short biographical sketch is based on information provided by the artist’s family in 2006.