Noah Davis

Career

Davis became known for his melancholic portrayals of blurred black figures against barren or shadowy landscapes – paintings that often teetered dangerously into the unreal. During his life he made approximately four hundred paintings, collages, and sculptures. His paintings are both figurative and abstract, realistic and dreamlike; they are about blackness and the history of Western painting, drawn from photographs and from life; they are energetic and mournful in their palette. "He paints what he sees and thinks, expressing the dynamics of his subject with great dignity and simplicity." Davis had advanced compositions that rendered as three-dimensional but remained flat. After Davis' passing his brother Kahlil Joseph and his sister-in-law, the film producer Onye Anyanwu, joined as founding board members. The Underground Museum is a cultural hub. John Legend and Solange Knowles launched albums there; Barry Jenkins, the director of "Moonlight" and Raoul Peck, the director of the James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro" screened their films. By the time of his death in 2015, Davis had created a special partnership with MOCA in which the museum agreed to loan the Underground Museum works from its permanent collection for a series of shows. Davis himself curated the first one, and left behind plans for 18 others.

The museum was closed for nearly two years due to the COVID-19 lockdowns and reopened in January 2022 under the newly appointed co-directorship of curator Meg Onli and executive Cristina Pacheco. The final exhibition in the Underground Museum was a solo retrospective of Davis's paintings. The museum closed again in March 2022 under unclear circumstances with the departures of both Onli and Pacheco. In a letter to supporters of the museum, posted to social media and the museum's website, Karon Davis wrote that she and her family had been "not able to fully grieve [Noah's] loss privately," and noted "how hard it has been for our family to let go enough to allow Meg and Cristina to do their jobs." The museum has not announced any long-term plans to reopen.

Exhibitions Davis staged a number of solo shows during his lifetime at galleries and museums in the United States. His notable solo shows include Noah Davis: Nobody (2008), Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles; Noah Davis: The Forgotten Works (2010), Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles; Savage Wilds (2012), James Harris Gallery, Seattle; The Missing Link (2013), Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles; and Garden City (2014), Papillion Gallery, Los Angeles.

Following his death, Davis' work has been the subject of several posthumous solo shows and has been included in several high-profile group shows. The Frye Art Museum, Seattle, organized Young Blood (2016), an exhibition exploring the work of Davis, his brother Kahlil Joseph, and the Underground Museum; David Zwirner Gallery, New York, staged a career retrospective in 2020 curated by Helen Molesworth; and a suite of Davis' paintings were included in The Milk of Dreams (2022) at the 59th Venice Biennale. Molesworth curated a second retrospective of Davis' work in 2022 for the Underground Museum with Justen Leroy, but the show ended several months early with the unexpected closure of the museum in March 2022. This retrospective will be on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Philadelphia, PA from January 24, 2026 - April 26, 2026.

Notable works in public collections

American Sterile (2008), Rubell Museum, Miami/Washington, D.C. Black Wall Street (2008), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Black Widow with Brothers Fighting (2008), Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina The Messenger (2008), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The Seven Prisoners of the Abyss (2008), Rubell Museum, Miami/Washington, D.C. I Own a Morandi (2009), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Year of the Coxswain (2009), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York All Those Lost to Oh Well (2010), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles inBoil and Margaret (2010), Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California The Missing Link 4 (2014), Los Angeles County Museum of Art Pueblo del Rio: Public Art Sculpture (2014), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles Carlos' World (2014-2015), Whitney Museum, New York The "Fitz" (2015), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Untitled (2015), Museum of Modern Art, New York