Active in London, portrait and landscape artist Davidson Knowles was born in 1852. Knowles was a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and Suffolk Street Gallery. He exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists, Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Walker Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, Royal Society of Portrait Painters and New England Art Club, among others. He also supplied illustrations to The Illustrated London News and The Girl’s Own Paper.

Knowles’ works are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.