Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Kenneth Davies became a noted still-life painter and long-time art teacher, living in Madison, Connecticut. He was also Dean of the Paier School of Art in New Haven. As a commercial artist, he created the logo for Wild Turkey bourbon.

He attended the Massachusetts School of Art in Boston, and after two years in the Army, studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts, graduating with a BFA in 1950. His teaching career began at the Whitney School of Art.

Richard Kugler, then-director of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Massachusetts, wrote: “His subjects are very much his own, carefully organized and precisely rendered. So, too, is the mastery with which he brings us familiar objects freshly seen. His impish wit lies close to the surface; his confidence in his craft is everywhere apparent.”

Art Digest said that Davies’ trompe l’oeil paintings “exhibit a visual observation so acute and a technical handling so precise that the spectator is not willing to give up the illusion that he can actually grasp a pencil or tear a piece from a torn envelope until he is within a foot of the canvas.”