An Iconic Artistic Life: Dale Davis and His Work

Dale Davis is one of the most venerated members of the African American artistic community in Southern California. To many people, his stellar reputation is based primarily on his groundbreaking accomplishments as a gallery owner and co-founder with his brother Alonzo Davis of the famed Brockman Gallery from 1967 to 1989. For others, his long and distinguished teaching at Dorsey High School established him as one of the most exceptional artistic mentors of young people in the city. Those accomplishments are central to his overall professional record, and they are vital to a comprehensive appreciation of his contributions to African American art in Southern California. A detailed account of those aspects of his life and work is central to an understanding of Davis's stature and is appropriately detailed in this article. The most exceptional and enduring feature of Dale Davis's work is his prolific and consistent commitment to visual arts production. Above all else, he has been an outstanding practicing artist for many decades, compiling a record that few artists of any race or ethnicity in the early 21st century can seriously match. The few art historians working in the field have been cognizant of his artistic quality for a long time. As early as 1971, Samella Lewis included Davis in volume 2 of her groundbreaking Black Artists on Art, written with Ruth Waddy. In that volume, Davis expressed a vision that, with some sophisticated modifications and developments over the years, reflects his deepest perspective as an African American artist: It is sometimes out of the rejected that beauty and creativity springs. My art represents what can be done with the things that some people consider worthless.... I have tried to create things of beauty to which we can all relate. Born in 1946 in Tuskegee, Alabama, he grew up in a comparatively privileged and sheltered black environment of the Tuskegee Institute. As children of educators, the Davis brothers had experiences denied most members of the African American community in the segregated of the early 1950s. They were exposed to a wide range of people, including educated African Americans and dignitaries from throughout the United States and foreign lands. The intellectual and cultural ideas that they experienced clearly took root and had a deeper impact in informing their subsequent careers as effective and respected visual artists and educators. At the same time, they were keenly aware of the South's Jim Crow discrimination against African Americans through personal observations in Tuskegee and through visits with family members in Alabama and North Carolina. That consciousness in their formative years likewise had a powerful effect on their mature artwork and on their respective efforts as educators. They understood perfectly that the same racial discrimination that was directed against their people in the Old South was also a huge factor in preventing African American visual artists from entry and participation into mainstream cultural institutions throughout the country. Dale Davis and his brother moved with their mother to Los Angeles in 1956 after their parents' marriage ended. The boys were exposed to a much greater diversity of people than they had in the South. The brothers interacted with blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asians--vastly different from the insular all-black environment of Tuskegee, Alabama. When Dale entered the University of Southern California, he was taught little about Africa and African Americans, a very typical educational reality at the time at all levels of education from elementary school through colleges and universities. But his childhood background gave him the knowledge and appreciation of his heritage, establishing the foundation for the teaching, gallery, and artistic work he would do throughout his adult life. In 1966, Alonzo and Dale Davis embarked on a now legendary road trip across the United States and Canada. …

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