Martin Davies

Who was Martin Davies?

Sir Martin Davies CBE FBA FSA was a British museum director and civil servant.

Davies read mathematics and modern languages at Cambridge University. He first joined the staff of the National Gallery, the institution to which he was to devote his career, as an attaché in 1930. After being made Assistant Keeper in 1932 he called for improved research on the paintings in the collection, which would eventually come to fruition in the series of catalogues inaugurated by Davies and still being produced by the Gallery today. These set new standards for the catalogues of large collections, and have been widely imitated.

His scholarly work was interrupted from 1938 to 1941 by the need to find a safe home for the National Gallery's paintings at the onset of the Second World War, away from the aerial bombardment of London. After the artworks were safely transferred to Manod Quarry near Ffestiniog, North Wales, Davies was able to make his research in total seclusion. The catalogues for the Netherlandish, French, and British schools of painting were published from 1945 to 1946. The much larger Catalogue of the Earlier Italian Schools was published in 1961.