Daniel Davis
1950 – 2011

Daniel Davis – a ceramics artist, paper cutouts and Judaica artist – was born in Petah Tikva. His father, Joe (Yosef) Davis, was born in New Zealand and came to Israel as part of his military service in World War II and from 1948 he worked as a journalist in the Israeli government’s press office. His mother, Ruth Lachman, born in Berlin, immigrated to Israel in 1934 with her family and later served as a social worker in the Youth Aliyah. In 1949, the two established a home in Ramat Hasharon, where Daniel grew up. The mother passed away when Daniel was 13 years old, and his father remarried to psychologist Rebecca (Kirsch) Davis. He spent his youth at the Mevo’ot-Yam military boarding school in Michmoret, and in the IDF he served in the Navy.
In 1976, after about four years in the East and Australia, Daniel began studying in the pottery department at Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem, but left a year later. In 1997, on the occasion of a ceramics exhibition at Beit Aharon Kahana in Ramat-Gan, Daniel wrote: 

At the age of 26, I was admitted to the ceramics department at Bezalel. A year and a half later, I left the department to find my way not in a school setting but in learning independently. I was like a tree without roots, and I realized that I need to draw my roots in order to grow from below. A visit to potters in Gaza changed me. Theirs was pottery that had roots in the past and it was still being created to this day. I now had something to hold on to. I chose to work in earthenware, and to build the pots upside down. I discovered that work on the balloon gives me a lot of satisfaction.
From the beginning of my journey, I chose to express myself through work  – as an  expression of the inside but also an expression that relates to the outside. My work, mostly, deals with death – a strong internal feeling that I have lived with – and outwardly, I related to the socio-political.
In most cases, I chose to leave the ceramic body naked. I used different techniques of inlay and glazing. Five years ago I stopped making pottery; but in all the years of creating with clay, clay protected me, taught me love, responsibility, boundaries, softness, concessions, processes – a place of first love, Mother Earth. 

From 1980 to 1983, Daniel taught in the ceramics department at the Tel Hai Institute of the Arts, and worked in a spacious studio overlooking the Marj-Ayun Valley on the Lebanese border. In 1983, as part of the Tel Hai 83 Contemporary Art Events, he created the performance “To Life” in collaboration with his partner, Adina Bar-On. In 1998, he wrote and edited the booklet “Imaginations of Potters” for the Israeli Symposium on Pottery in Tel Hai.

In the years 1986-1988, Daniel created several series of urns in his studio in collaboration with the artist Moshe Gershoni. Since Gershoni was not a potter, Daniel prepared clay according to the unique recipe he developed and processed the urns on the stones in the “Davis method”. He also mixed the materials for the outer layer, and Gershoni applied the glaze and slips under his guidance. As evidence of their mutual connection, in the painting it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between Davis’s and Gershoni’s touches.
From 1986 to 1996, Daniel worked in his studio at the Tel Aviv Port, but was forced to leave the studio when the city renovated the port area. Following this change, he turned his attention to other mediums – paper cutouts, Judaica and writing – and began to develop ideas that drew from Jewish sources. Daniel created the paper he worked on himself through a compression process, and produced the letters by tearing wet paper. He also created the colors he used himself using unique techniques he invented. From 1997 to 2000, he was a member of the Duff Group, which created Judaica works.
Woman Of The Pots (1990-91) – an installation of seventy pottery pieces, a performance and a film – was created by Daniel and Adina Bar-On at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (the performance was also presented at the Tel Hai 90 events). The pottery, approximately 130 cm high, were inspired by Islamic and Jewish motifs, and some of them also served as musical percussion instruments during the performance. 

Throughout the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, Daniel Davis participated in numerous group exhibitions, including:
1993 – “The Container and the Contents”: Urns and Urn Images in Contemporary Israeli Art”, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem; curator: Alec Mishori.

1998 – “Ways in Clay: Five Decades of Ceramics in Israel”, Beit Aharon Kahane Musum, Ramat-Gan; curators: Ina Aruetty, Yoav Dagon, Ilan Wizgan.

1999 – Horace Richter Gallery, Old Jaffa. 

2000 – “Contemporary Judaica”, Binyanei Ha’Ouma, Jerusalem.

2001-4 – Traveling exhibition at Jewish cultural centers throughout the United States (with the Duff Group).

2002 – Second Biennial of Israeli Ceramics, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv; Curator: Sorin Heller.

2009 – “Renewing Tradition: Jewish Paper Cuttings”, Beit Hatfutsot, Tel Aviv; Curators: Olga Goldenberg, Gabriela Rabi, Rina Biran.  

In 2005, Daniel became fatally ill as a result of an infection he was exposed to during his military service (1969-1973), as one of the divers who dived in the waters of the Kishon River and Haifa Port. He continued to create throughout most of his illness, until his death in 2011. 

In 2005, the solo exhibition “Dani-El for Love” was presented at the Tel Aviv Artists’ House, curated by Idit Porat. In 2025, the exhibition “We of the Earth: Danny Eyal Davis” opened – a retrospective solo exhibition in his memory at the Benyamini House, Center for Contemporary Ceramics, Tel Aviv; curator: Dr. Shlomit Bauman