Davies, John

Davies, John (1946– ). British sculptor, born in Cheshire. He studied painting at Hull and Manchester Colleges of Art, 1963–7, then sculpture at the Slade School, 1967–9. His work typically consists of clothed male figures, the heads cast from the life in plaster; they wear real clothes and shoes and have glass eyes, but their flesh is painted an ashen grey and their vacant inexpressiveness of face and posture is reminiscent of shop-window display dummies. Timothy Hyman writes that ‘The effect is as though we've been made to dream them, figures seen through rain or tears, and to take on their burden of grief’ (catalogue of the exhibition ‘British Sculpture in the Twentieth Century', Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1981). Davies's sculpture has sometimes been described as Superrealist, but many critics think that it is too personal for such classification. During the 1970s he attracted a good deal of attention (in Super Realism (1979) Edward Lucie-Smith described him as ‘perhaps the most exciting young artist to have emerged in England during the 1970s'), but his reputation has perhaps declined somewhat since ( Lucie-Smith does not mention him in Art Today (1995)).