While in high school, Davis, with friends Russell Myers and Archie Goodwin formed a cartoonist's club that met daily at the Owl Drugstore at 11th Street and Pittsburg in Tulsa.
After finishing his courses at School of Visual Arts, he was hired by Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, partners in the groundbreaking Push Pin Studios.
[2] He then illustrated "A Bestiary" of famous people, conceived and written by artist Edward Sorel, which appeared in the July 1962 issue of Horizon magazine.
Davis's work quickly caught the imagination of art directors in the U.S. and abroad, and he was soon in demand as an illustrator for magazines, record album covers, book jackets, and advertising.
In 1987, The Drama Desk created a special award[3] to recognize Davis's iconic posters for Joseph Papp's Public Theater, and he is in the Hall of Fame of both the Art Directors Club and the Society of Illustrators.
Paul's iconic poster for the Public Theater production of Three Penny Opera is on the wall of Jonathan Eliot's apartment in the NBC sitcom The Single Guy.
Davis created album artwork for two Chiaroscuro Records releases: Gene Krupa's Jazz at the New School and Summit Reunion's Yellow Dog Blues.