Daniel Pender Davidson was born on 2nd October 1885 at Camelon, Falkirk, the son of David Davidson and his wife Christina. His elder brother Randolph and sister Davidina (or Etta) both went to Edinburgh University. All three first attended the Camelon Public School at Falkirk, of which their father was headmaster, and then George Watson’s College, Edinburgh. In the 1901 census, Daniel was noted as an architect’s apprentice and may have studied at the Falkirk Science and Art School at that time. A review of an exhibition of his paintings in the Falkirk Herald of 25th August 1906, states that he had by then studied at the Glasgow School of Art ‘for the past four years [1902–1906], and this winter he will proceed to Bruxelles to study under Professor Delville there’.

By 1908 he had also been in Munich to study and visited Venice, Rome and Florence. On 28th July 1919, Davidson, married Yvonne Pauline McBean, and later remarried to Violette C. Noble in 1927.

The 1929 edition of Who’s Who in Art describes Davidson as ‘Painter of portraits, landscapes, decorative figure compositions and still life in oil, scenic artist and painter of period panels for interior decorative schemes’. Images seen online include ‘boardroom’ portraits of men, decorative ones of women and scenic landscapes. Davidson’s work was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

In the 1920s, the artist became curator or cataloguer of prints and drawings at the Wellcome Collection. He died suddenly on 4th November 1933 in Putney, London.