James Davis

James Edwards Davis was an experimental filmmaker. As well as filming the estate of his friend Frank Lloyd Wright, he made films of the the light refractions caused by his plastic sculptures He spent much time in Paris in the twenties where he studied art under Andre Lhote, a notable cubist who was known as one of the great art teachers of the time. At this point in time Davis was a painter, drawer, and sculptor. He brought back a cubist influence to New York and was a friend of one of the first American abstract painters, John Marin. In 1945 he met Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who had been a Professor at the Bauhaus, another important artist and great teacher. Moholy-Nagy was very taken with Davis' work at the time and the influence was joint. Davis believed himself to be in a long line of great artist working with and understanding light. He was a filmmaker of light in a time when few others were (a notable exception being Oskar Fischinger), and was a great influence on another friend of his, Stan Brakhage. Brakhage dedicated his film, "Text of Light" to Jim Davis. Whilst Jim Davis was arguably one of the great American abstract filmmakers, he was a very publicity-shy man and therefore failed to get much distribution and critical attention. What remains of his work we have to thank Stan Brakhage for bringing to the public attention.