Wynne Weston Davies was born April 1892 in the Hornsey district of London, England. His middle name, Weston, was the maiden name of his Great Grandmother. His father, John Weston Davies, was born in Wales in 1871. His mother, Elizabeth Griffith, was born in 1872 in Wales. His parents married in 1890 and had five children, of which he was the eldest, Wynne (b.1892), Richard (b.1894), Edward (b.1896), and Elizabeth (b.1903), and John (b.1909). The family lived at 65 Watergate Street in Chester. The father was a cabinet maker for a london furniture company.
In 1903 at the age of eleven he won a scholarship to study at the South Kensington Museum School of Art.
In 1911 at the age of nineteen he became a merchant seaman and sailed the world for four years, until he settled in Sydney, Australia.
In 1915 he worked as a Jackaroo farmhand in Queensland, Australia, until he decided to seek his fortune as a commercial artist.
During the Great War he did not serve in the military because of a medical condition. Two of his younger brothers, Richard and Edward, did serve in WWI and were both killed. It is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this tragic loss to the surviving family members.
In 1919 Wynne Weston Davies married his wife, Jessie Frances Davies. She was born in 1885 in Birregurra, Victoria, Australia.
In 1922 he opened his art studio at 13 Wynyard Lane in Sydney, Australia. One year later he moved to 45 Clarence Street, and the year after that he opened new offices on the second floor of the New Royal Arcade Building.
In 1925 he drew one of the earliest comic strips in an Australian newspaper, Percy Plantaganet.
From 1928 to 1930 he created several motion picture posters for Hollywood movies. He traveled to Hollywood and visited the Walt Disney Studios.
He arrived in New York City in 1931 and he moved to Hollis, Queens. In 1934 his wife joined him.
During the 1930s his painted covers that appeared on Murder Mysteries, Gay Nights, Paris Nights, Scarlet Adventuress, Star Novels, and True Gang Life.
His story illustrations appeared in Ace Sorts, Exciting Western, Five Novels Monthly, Popular Sports, Popular Western, Texas Rangers, and Thrilling Western.
In 1938 he and his wife left America and returned to Australia, where he worked for The Sydney Bulletin and a popular weekly news magazine, Women's Weekly. He painted full color covers and drew black and white story illustrations for this publication for the next two decades.
They lived on Macquarie Road in Springwood, which is in the Blue Mountain region of New South Wales.
During WWII he worked as a camouflage instructor for the New South Wales Army.
During the 1950s his cover illustrations appeared on the Australian pulp digest magazine Western Monthly, which was published by Shakespeare Head Press.
Wynne W. Davies died at the age of seventy-one on December 12, 1963.
© David Saunders 2009 |
