William Davis was an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 artist, and part of a group of Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 based artists who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style of painting.

He was born in Dublin, received his artistic education there and begun his career as a portrait painter. He moved to Liverpool in 1842 and began to exhibit in the Liverpool Academy

Liverpool Academy of Arts

The Liverpool Academy of Arts was founded in April 1810 as a regional equivalent of the Royal Academy, London. Two local art collectors, Henry Blundell and William Roscoe were its first Patron and Secretary, the Prince Regent gave his patronage for the next three years, and it was actively...

. In 1851 he started to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Originally painting still lives

Still life

A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...

 in 1853 he began producing landscapes

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

. His work was admired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

 and Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

, through which he was asked to join the Hogarth club

Hogarth Club

The Hogarth Club was an exhibition society of artists, based at 84 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, which existed between 1858 and 1861. It was founded by former members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood after the original PRB had been dissolved...

.

See also

• List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings - including the work of William Davis.
• William Lindsay Windus
  William Lindsay Windus
  William Lindsay Windus was an English painter, part of a group of Liverpool painters who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style.-Life and work:...
  
  
• Daniel Alexander Williamson
  Daniel Alexander Williamson
  Daniel Alexander Williamson was a British artist, part of a group of Liverpool painters who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style.-See also:*List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings - including the works of Daniel Alexander Williamson....
  
  
• James Campbell
  James Campbell (artist)
  James Campbell was an English artist, part of a group from Liverpool, who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style. He studied briefly at the Liverpool Academy and then moved on to the Royal Academy Schools in 1851....
  
  
• John Lee
  John Lee (artist)
  John Lee was a British painter, part of a group of Liverpool artists, influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style. Very little is known about Lee's life and only four paintings have been attributed to him with any certainty...