Noah Davis at The Hammer Museum

On Friday, August 29, Art Division students visited Noah Davis at the Hammer Museum—the first institutional survey of the late artist’s groundbreaking work (on view June 8 – August 31, 2025). The exhibition brought together over 50 works created between 2007 and 2015, charting the breadth and depth of Davis’s extraordinary practice. His paintings draw on influences as wide-ranging as family histories, ancient Egyptian cosmologies, current affairs, flea market photographs, and American media. With a style that feels at once realistic and dreamlike, joyful and melancholic, Davis captured the contradictory sensations of lived experience in ways that deeply resonated with our students.

​Students shared that they found the artwork relatable to their own lived experience. Afterward, the group continued the conversation over lunch, reflecting on the themes and techniques that struck them most.

We also added the exhibition book to the Art Division Library Collection—ensuring Davis’s legacy and vision can continue to inspire our community.