Gene Davis (painter) "Black Grey Beat," (1964), acrylic on
canvas, collection:Smithsonian American Art Museum August 22,
1920| |Died||April 6, 1985 |Training||University of Maryland|
|Movement||Washington Color School, Color Field painting, Post-
painterly Abstraction| |Influenced by||Paul Klee| Gene Davis
(August 22, 1920 - April 6, 1985) was an American painter known
especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color, and
was a member of the group of abstract painters in Washington DC
during the 1960s, known as the Washington Color School. Davis
was born in Washington D.C. in 1920 and spent nearly all his
life there. Before he began to paint in 1949, he worked as a
sportswriter, covering the Washington Redskins and other local
teams. Working as a journalist in the late 1940s, he covered the
Roosevelt and Truman presidential administrations, and was often
President Truman's partner for poker games. His first art studio
was in his apartment on Scott Circle; later he worked out of a
studio on Pennsylvani