AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM "LUCKY" DAVIS

Written by Kim Weeks from her interview with William "Lucky" Davis

9/01/24


Landscape artist William “Lucky” Davis may not have actively pursued a career in painting as a young man, but his creativity has flourished in a variety of ways throughout life. And the results are hanging on the walls of Montana Trails Gallery and are evidenced by the homes he built and furnished across southwest Montana.

 

Born William Alfred Davis V, Lucky acquired his nickname at birth, essentially to avoid confusion with other family members. Not only is he the fifth of his name, he is a fifth generation Montanan, a descendent of homesteaders on both sides of his family dating back to the early 19th century. And while most of those ranches were sold off after World War II, Lucky has fond memories of his grandmother’s remaining ranch, situated near the Beartooth Mountains.

 

Like many artists, Lucky cannot remember a time that he was not drawing. As a boy he remembers drawing cartoons and taking art classes in school, but after graduation, he put aside notions of a career in art, in favor of more practical vocational pursuits.

 

“I got married at a fairly young age, and … [art] was not realistic in terms of having a family and having children and all that. So I put my art career, you might say, on hold for a few decades,” Lucky said.

 

But despite this decision, Lucky remembers that one of his first jobs after high school was indeed quite artistic. He created Indian bead work on leather items, such as moccasins or vests, using his own original designs or those true to the Blackfeet tradition.

 

“That interested me. It was the sixties, you know?” he said. “[I made] leather goods and bead work and that kind of thing, and sold that to some extent. Then I got married, and just the reality of making a living took front and center.”

 

So, Lucky began to work as a carpet layer, taking a few years to learn the trade until, eventually, he contracted work on his own. After a short time doing that, Lucky and his wife Ana Maria Torres bought a piece of property in Montana, kept it for a couple of years, and then sold it for a profit.

 

“So real estate, from then on, has always been the core of it. We’ve always made investments, built homes and speculated, I guess you might call it,” he said.

 

Lucky, who is an entirely self-taught artist, says he did not necessarily inherit his painting talent from anyone in his family line. However, thanks to his grandmother, he did develop a keen interest in antiques which has impacted a large part of his career.  

 

“My grandmother, who I was very good friends with, always took me to junk stores and antiquing. So, that’s probably where I got that early interest in doing that,” Lucky said.

 

Once Lucky and Ana Maria had found some success in real estate, they opened an antique and furniture shop, which was part of historic downtown Bozeman for more than 20 years. Davis Torres Furniture Collection offered antiques, furniture, interior design services, and eventually, developed a line of custom furniture manufactured in Bozeman.

 

“We just followed our customers and their interests. Eventually, we started carrying furniture and then it evolved into very high-end furniture. We went to Europe and bought containers of antiques,” Lucky said. “We did that for quite a few years. I think we had about 40, 50 employees at one stage. We did all those kinds of things and owned the building downtown and eventually sold it.”

 

All the while, Lucky continued to buy and restore buildings, including the Lehrkind Mansion, a Queen Anne style home which local brewer, Julius Lehrkind, built for his family in the late 19th century. Lucky meticulously restored the historic Bozeman home, which is now available for vacation rental as the Lehrkind Garden House.

 

“That was a fairly authentic restoration,” he said. “And I am happy to say we licensed it just because we felt it was a good adjunct to the real estate. It’s hard to get those homes to survive, other than dividing them up into apartments. The concept was to license a bed and breakfast, and to this day it is still a successful bed and breakfast. I feel good about that.”

 

During all of those years, Lucky was still creating art, using pencil and pastels, and drawing for his own pleasure. But it was only within the last several years that he was able to try painting with oils.

 

“I always wanted to try [working with oils] but I couldn’t because the mediums always had solvents in them, and my wife is sensitive to those kinds of things. But I came across a medium that I could use, and it didn’t bother her. So that’s why I started, and when I started painting. I was in semi-retirement,” he said.

When he began oil painting, Lucky says he only did it for himself, just for fun. He had no intention of taking his work to a gallery, but Ron Kinnear, fellow Bozeman retailer had other ideas.

 

“My friend went and knocked on Montana Trails’ door, unbeknownst to me,” Lucky said. “Ron took some photos of my work and went to [MTG owner] Steve [Zabel] and said, ‘This is what Lucky’s doing. Do you have any interest?’ So, Steve came to the house and offered me the opportunity, and that was really how it started.”

 

MTG employee Megan Molyneaux said Lucky’s work is a beautiful complement to the other works in the gallery, because of the differences in spirit and tenor.

 

“Lucky’s work definitely has a feel to it that clients respond to. It’s soothing and tranquil and offers a different perspective than some of our other, more imposing or narrative landscapes,” said Megan.

 

In his art, Lucky said he is most influenced by Tonalism, a period which began around the 1870s in Europe and was popular through the early 20th century. Rather than faithfully representing a subject, Tonalism brings about a mood or a feeling when one looks at the piece.

 

“A lot of that comes from the palette. You use a limited palette and the colors are more grays, rather than primary colors,” he said. “I paint for myself and I paint what I like in landscapes; those scenes that, again, have that mood. I don’t paint daytime, full-light landscapes. I like those mornings and those evening landscapes. And I like landscapes where there are Mother Nature’s storms and that kind of thing. Certain kinds of light.”

 

He says he also likes to paint what he calls “micro environments,” which are not on as grand a scale as mountainscapes, but again, they evoke a peaceful, perhaps even familiar, aura. Lucky says he continues to develop these themes and his artistic work just by painting in the studio every day.

 

“Perhaps as an artist you always feel this way, but I still feel I’m learning. Each time I’ve [sat  to do] a painting, it’s a journey and you never know quite where it will take you,” he said. “So now I think my painting is evolving, not necessarily intentionally, but just through time I think that happens.”

 

Viewers of Lucky’s work may notice that there is no signature visible on his paintings. Because, he says, even if he tried to blend it with the rest of the scene, a signature can take away from the mood of the entire piece.

 

“I don’t like signatures on the front of a painting. You go to all this effort to paint a painting and then all of a sudden there’s this signature, and I think it’s distracting, even as much as you try to disguise it. So I sign the paintings on the back and the name of the painting is on the back. That’s just my thing,” he said.

 

Even though Lucky claims to be in semi-retirement, he still paints every day, and he and Ana Maria are still working in real estate, buying, selling, building and decorating beautiful homes throughout the area.

 

“My wife and I are Type A personalities. After 25 years of working our business and doing all that we’ve done, I think it just ultimately came down to [the fact that] that’s our personality,” he said. “We like to be engaged. We like to be doing things. And I had always put this art interest on the back burner. And we were fortunate to be successful in our businesses and we were planners and savers, and we got to that stage in life where we do things now that interest us … we do things that are unique. And that’s an artistic outlet as well, an artistic expression, so that’s sort of our next era of life.”

 

Most recently, they have been building re-creations of log compounds, reminiscent of those that might be seen at Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks, and sell them as complete, turnkey properties.

 

“We’ve developed some antique finishes that make the buildings outside look as though they’re weathered and antique. And on the inside they have wonderful aged patinas that look like they’ve been there for decades. And then what we do with those is we still buy antiques, both Americana and European, and we furnish those,” Lucky said.

 

While Lucky’s painting talent might not have been passed down from his ancestors, his talent for creating beautiful homes for new generations of Montanans certainly brings the family tradition around, full-circle. And among those magnificent rugs, furniture and objets d’art that enrich the interiors of these homesteads, one might just want to include a simple, outwardly unsigned, landscape painting that evokes a mood of quietude and tranquility.

 

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