Biography of an Artist

The namesake of our foundation was a celebrated portrait painter from Sydney Australia who traveled the world as a young artist and left an indelible mark on her craft. 

As a student, she studied at the Royal Academy of Art and was mentored by the likes of W. Lister Lister. At the tender age of twenty, Sylvia accompanied her father, Leslie James Davis, on a gold-mining expedition to Guadalcanal. Nearly a year later, Sylvia returned with nearly eighty canvases completed while living among the Solomon Island natives and surrounding landscapes. She quickly became a known internationally for the series.

At twenty-three, she arrived in the United States as an American war bride and continued to produce many commissioned portraits of notable members of the New England community. Her much heralded success in both Australia and in the U.S. resulted in a subsequent second exhibition of her work opened by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1951 at G. Fox & Company, Hartford, Connecticut.  The exhibition was sponsored by G. Fox & Co., WTIC and the Wadsworth Athenaeum.

Sylvia then turned her attention to notable American figures, including portraits of Eleanor Roosevelt and General Douglas MacArthur. She also spent many years traveling with the PGA tour, and captured many of golfs greatest players on her canvas.

In later years, Sylvia taught painting and drawing at the West Hartford Art League, and continued to relish in a creative life until her death in 2010.