ELLEN N. DAVIS

ELLEN DAVIS Obituary

DAVIS--Prof. Ellen Nancy, renowned archaeologist and art historian, died on July 15, 2013 of complications from COPD. She was born to Francis Davis and Celia Zoss of Baltimore, MD on July 20, 1937. Ellen is survived by nephew David Clark, nieces Julie Clark and Amy Dodds, all of Virginia, and two beloved cats. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1973 from the NYU Institute of Fine Arts, Davis joined the faculty of Queen's College, CUNY, where she taught art history. A specialist in Minoan and Mycenaean wall painting and metalwork, Ellen was also a founding member of the New York Aegean Bronze Age Colloquium. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The National Audubon Society. A memorial service for family, friends, and colleagues will be held in NYC this fall.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by New York Times on Jul. 20, 2013.

Memories and Condolences
for ELLEN DAVIS

10 Entries

Thomas Palaima

July 14, 2025

Ellen you were Ellen
through and through.
Ellen, Ellen I miss you.
In the small garden wall of my heart
a stone is missing
it provided visual pleasure
and structural balance

I see you missing there
whenever I take a look

and I miss sleeping beneath Rauschenberg at night

Thank you for all the good times
in a period when at times
I thought what´s up was down
and what wasn´t was

films, bagels with shmears, music,
and long long conversations and
Chinatown and your birding

You were truly Euxeine

Tom

Thomas Palaima

July 14, 2024

Ellen,

I think of you many days of my life, which is now just three or four years short of yours. Your person and your apartment, your cats, your coffee. your couch that I slept on, the sun-fading Rauschenberg above it, your bagels, the movies and music we took in, the Met, Chinatown, the ways you saw what I could not see, your never being judgmental, the way you remembered Warhol, just being with you was a blessing incomparable among even my closest friends. Whenever I was staying with you in your apartment, I felt I was in a sanctuary where I could be just plain old me. I remember your sharing with me two atrocious events that happened in your apartment, and your grace and dignity and understanding of the world.

And beyond all those things your mind and beneath them and coursing through them your beautiful soul.

I wish you were still in our world physically and I hope that your soul now is flying free as the birds whom you loved.

Tom

Cynthia Hawkins

December 2, 2023

I studied with Prof. Davis in the early 1970s. I still remember the paper I wrote for her class Art History 50, Seated Figurines from Naxos, the research and the course made a huge impression on me, so much so that classical art continues to be of interest even though I am a long-time abstract painter. I am sorry for her family's loss even at this late moment of rememberance.

Palaima , Thomas G

July 14, 2021

heis kalos philos polloi philoi
one fine friend is many friends
is my personal variant of an oft-quoted Greek remark on the nature of true friendship. Ellen proved that in who she was and how she took in and gave to our world. She was/is incomparable and irreplaceable. i miss you, Ellen.

Thomas Palaima

November 9, 2020

Ellen lives on in many of us through the way she made her scholarship a seamless part of her life. Whenever I was in NEw York from 1985 onward, as I was frequently at least to attend the annual meetings of the ASCSA, I always stayed with ellen in her small and typically Ellen decorated one bedroom apartment. I slept under the Rauschenberg that he gave her,,she told me, in thanks for her help in setting up an exhibition—what days those must have been. We talked, we ate, drank coffee made her inimitable way, we went out to movies or on occasion to hear some jazz—at my prompting—we just WERE together. We. She was one of the few people I have met with whom I could talk about anything and nothing would change the friendship we shared. Visits to see Malcolm were special because of his generous friendship with us both. Ellen is undying in my heart. She made Aegean prehistory a way of living and a way of sharing, but she never let it be her or be me. “I wish, I wish, I wish in vain That we could be together in her apartment once again.”

Thomas Palaima

November 9, 2020

August 9, 2013

You are an inspiration to me.

Judith Weingarten

August 2, 2013

A fine scholar and a good friend. The Aegean archaeological community will miss her, but her work will survive for a very long time.

Sandy MacGillivray

August 2, 2013

we will miss you, Ellen. You taught me so much.

M. Joseph

July 20, 2013

My sincere condolences to the family and friends as you grieve your loss. May you be comforted by the hearer of prayer during this difficult time. Psalm 65:2

Showing 1 - 10 of 10 results