
Fooling the Eye
WILLIAM M. DAVIS IS NOT one of the major heroes in the history of American painting. The only comprehensive show ever devoted to his work lasted three days, October 16–18, 1971, in the rooms of the Historical Society of Greater Port Jefferson, Long Island, and the catalogue (Melville A. Kitchin, Port Jefferson’s Foremost Painter, W. M. Davis, 1829–1920) for it has just appeared, in the spring of 1974, thereby establishing something of a record for time lag between exhibition and publication. He was a follower of George Henry Durrie and of William Sidney Mount, but at one point he broke through