Davis Cone is a celebrated American realist who has chosen Art Deco movie theatres as his subject. His meticulous chronicles of these disappearing icons of American life are included in virtually every important collection of contemporary American representational art. A native of Augusta, Georgia, Davis Cone began exhibiting regionally in 1977. By 1981, his work was shown in Tokyo, Lisbon, Madrid and Nuremburg as well as many major American cities. Davis Cone’s first one-person gallery exhibition was at OK Harris Works of Art in New York in 1979. Since then, there have been seven shows at OK Harris, and the exhibition Theatre Paintings 1977-1983 at the Georgia Museum of Art (Athens) and the Hunter Museum of Art (Chatanooga, TN). Davis Cone’s works are included in the landmark touring exhibition catalogue, Contemporary American Realism since 1960, published in 1981 by Frank M. Goodyear, Jr. and in the book Photorealism since 1980, by Louis K. Meisel published in 1993. His paintings are the subject of the book Hollywood on Main Street, the Movie House Paintings of Davis Cone by Linda Chase (The Overlook Press, 1988) and Popcorn Palaces: The Art Deco Theatre Paintings of Davis Cone by Michael E. Kinerk and Dennis E. Wilhem (Harry N. Abrahms, Inc., 2001)
