52
WBM april 2018
art treatise
intense color W
ITH the van-tage
point
of hindsight,
Harry Davis —
renowned oil
painter and
Wilmington
native — recalls that he always had a talent for
drawing.
“Anything I looked at, I could draw. Anything I
visualized, I could draw it. And draw it well,” he says.
In spite of that innate ability, Davis’ art career
began in an exceptionally unconventional way —
with an accident at a military base.
As a young man, Davis served as a military
policeman with the 82nd Airborne Division at
Fort Bragg. Sitting in the mess hall one day, Davis
was accidentally shot by another serviceman. The
bullet passed through his spine, leaving him per-manently
confined to a wheelchair.
In the weeks and months that followed, Davis
was faced with an unexpected need for a new plan.
“When I came home, I had no idea what I was
going to do with my time. I had no idea how I was
going to spend the rest of my life,” he says.
During the first few months of his recovery,
he spent most of his time reading. Davis focused
primarily on nonfiction, and works of history and
black history were his favorites.
“I sometimes read multiple books at a time. I
was trying to learn all of the things that I ignored
in high school,” Davis explains with a full, good-natured
laugh.
Also within that first year, Davis’ mother bought
him a paint-by-numbers set. The kit contained
three sketches on small pieces of canvas board
and eight cups of oil paint. The experience of cre-ating
art was life-changing.
“I painted the first sketch — a landscape with
mountains, pine trees and a lake — and some-thing
just clicked,” he says. “At that moment, I
had no thoughts of becoming a visual artist, but
I knew that I’d found something I could pass the
Man with Horn I, 48 x 36 inches, oil on canvas.