A talent for art and design, plus a degree in English literature, led Myrna Davis to a life in the visual arts that combined both interests and led her to meet and often work with many celebrated artists and designers of the past 50 years.

Ms. Davis’s early career included stints at Doubleday Publishing, The Woman’s Home Companion, Columbia Records, George Nelson & Company, and at Push Pin Studios, where she edited the influential Push Pin Graphic. She later worked free-lance on projects with Milton Glaser, Peter Paul & Mary, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, Paul Rudolph, George Beylerian, The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, and other creative artists and institutions. She also wrote occasional articles for magazines in the U.S. and abroad, among them Arts, Idea, Graphis and Affiche.

In 1965 she married Paul Davis, one of the early Push Pin artists, and has worked closely with him ever since. As managing partner of the Paul Davis Studio, Myrna liaised with diverse clients such as the New York Shakespeare Festival, the American Museum of the Moving Image, filmmakers, and book and magazine publishers; managed staff and schedules; organized gallery and museum exhibitions; developed books and art catalogues; and worked on the pilot issues of two new magazines, Normal, a literary and arts periodical, and Wigwag, a general interest monthly. She authored The Potato Book, with drawings by 23 artists and an introduction by Truman Capote, eventually published in five languages, and collaborated with her husband on Bouquet: Twelve Flower Fables, for which he created paintings inspired by her tales.

IN 1993 she was invited to join the Art Directors Club in New York as Executive Director, and during her 14-year tenure the organization experienced unprecedented growth in the Art Directors Annual Awards, its renowned international competition in advertising, design and interactive media, and also in the number and quality of its educational programs and activities, and the quality of its staff and board. Having accomplished the revitalization of the 87-year old organization, Mrs. Davis left the organization in May to focus on a new book and related startup business in the health field.

Ms. Davis graduated from Barnard College, and studied at Cooper Union, the Brooklyn Museum, the School of Visual Arts, the New School, and the New York School of Interior Design. She served as a trustee of the experimental Hampton Day School on eastern Long Island, and as founding co-chair of the Sag Harbor Preservation Commission to gain landmark status for the historic village. She and her husband now divide their time between Manhattan and Sag Harbor.