By Giuseppe Marasco

Instinctively ethicial in his approach as a painter. The 1980s RA exhibition hard times was the last time the public had a chance to be familair with this artist. One whose mission was to make an art that could show universal truths. Holls the Consummate artist

Holl’s benifited from this new branch of Art, the pressing urgancy of the deadline ..suggests the multlipility..(that painters would get much out of if there was an outlet as disaplined as reportage) as well as the sense of retaining and tending the story for longer. One of the important question about art, is very much about how long the artist has lived with the reality they make, recreate, and then transmit. (authentic) (so that An illustrtraed or painted scene is already a momument… (in the proper sense) (that not of marking power) but marking a moment, and creating a space for it to carry on within other times. So that it maybe returned to.

Dalwood often refers to reduced means Raymond Carver…

on the coast he lived in a poor community, in London he took trips to the heart of poverty in the city.

Exposing themselves to the underbelly of the city.

The discipline of illustracted journalism clearly benifitted Holl.

The need to respond quickly to pictorical decisions and attempt to capture the scene depict imbuded his work with a freshness and boldness in his contempory life that he hitherto not achieved.

The number of his graphic illustractions that became the basis of paintings, such as At a railway station, Deserted – A Foundling, Gone. Summoned for service.

An esstential element of Holl;s fisher subjects had been his immersion in their lives, not only to undestand them at first a hand but to build an empathic relationship that he would express in his bleak narratives. He clearly felt the need to experience the london lives in the same way.

Details.

Important in historical terms

The exhibition also charts the turn to portrature.

To get onto the ground for oneself. That’s the golden rule of journalism, and its something that Frank Holls did in abundance. History is to search out for oneself, allow no prevailing impositions s a rare thing indeed.

(much of his painting reminds me of the best of classic Golden age Holywood staging. The stage. Indde he remind us of Caravaggio because of this cinematic quality, lighting and control of attention and detail)

We don’t really have one of the most hypocratic of government in place at the moment.

We’ve also come from a period of time which has been quite socially blind.

Bought by Queen Victorian, painting was so in demand… energertic in attempting to meet it. Success killed him, Work that Watts himself pass on because of health, Holls should have also. (It was that he put so muchof himself into the poratraits, which should make us more appricative of the work of the portraitist, the thought, the loiving with the phychologicial excavation and the editing of the mass of choices possible from the mass of information… The emotion involvement and empathy. Think hat the best portartist can produce in a work the sense of an entire biography in an instant,for us cultural it is easier to imagine the industry and intensity of the great projects of a writer. This does put an an interesting seriess of question about how (Whigg history, Production and presenation of Victorian idenity all interacted in the practice of Holls).

The strenght of his work was acute observations. That is, observation collected built up into experience and then drawn upon.

Great admiration for the work of William Hogarth. One of the great observers of life. Remain fresh. And quite other to its time.

Right now with the current social stresses, there has been quite a concerted reinvestedment amongst contemporary British painters into social realist painting. Frank Holls offers an intrigung and inspring model, who broke the mold and was above all else one of the finest to paint with empathy the human subject.

treading in the territory that Charles Dickens and Gustave Dore covered … of the city streets.

Turning away from the Willful blindness of recent years. Makes me think of the Invisable man…

an aspect here in need of being re-imagined. This painter and others should well be revisioned as reporter artists, even anthprologists. Far closer to the War artist. The subjects or event they portray are rendered straight. While using his training to make as legiable and resonant as possble.

(refreshing that he was an artist who search out for his subject, makes me think how arid and elipticial much subjcet matter is, little often dealing with real life, rarely injecting the creativity

that only happen in the holistic approach of the arts into… for… solutions

their medium of the day…

photographic… but it is the emotion invested and conveyed.

Watts like. Connection. Many ready to step out of the paintings. Living. Sense of wonder that all lives posses no matter the circumstances.

The irony of great early success and the decents not wishing to part with paintings.

Holl early on learnt the ethic of industry and the power of black ad white, light and shade.

Determined very early on to only do subjects absolutely ‘felt’ by him and fight through what decide upon.

Interested in contemporary relevance

An English Caravaggio

penetration, power and earnestness that are the hallmarks of Holls work.

Tragic aspect.

The tragic is important. As it reflects on circumstances and turns of fate pattern and scope too large or distant of us to have any power over.

A sensitivity we lost in the weird space-time warp of the sub-prime years. (pre-crunch years)

Welshs peasants.

Prize to travel Europe and study old masters.

Watt’s Gallery was pretty amazing. Much, much bigger than I expected. The tea shop- restaurant was much much better than I could have realised.

The Show on, Frank Holls is really very interesting. Though it is quite a small exhibition, a little on the Scholarly side.

He had a very interesting social realist period in his early years that brought him much fame. Owning to a firm background in illustration, on the very same theme, the line is very assured and clear. Very precise and judicious use of the Chiaroscuro effect, elevating any point or story being told. Caravaggio. Much of he exhibition centers around a fisherman’s family, who he would visit at yearly intervals. So that there is more unlocked from the encounter of the painter – Subject and persons involved. Something emerges, that would have been outside a straightforward design intension with models or the result of visiting different family’s. No longer a straightforward little capsule… but something contains so much more information that spills out…

Also parallels Caravaggio in, choosing real people as his models.

the new picture magazine, The Graphic, which first appeared in December 1869.

This socially-conscious rival to the Illustrated London News, encouraged not only the usual engravers and illustrators but also new fine artists.

Outstanding contributors included not only Holl, but Luke Fildes, Hubert von Herkomer and John Everett Millais and writers like George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope and H Rider Haggard. Vincent Van Gogh was a great admirer of these illustrations.

child prodigy, Holl won a prestigious Royal Academy travelling scholarship in 1868 for his painting “The Lord Giveth and the Lord Hath Taken Away”. It is a bleak scene

“to steady his aim, to concentrate his forces, fix his purpose, and enable him to finish and carry right through that which he began”.

He specialised in bringing to light the harsh realities of life for girls and women in the poorer classes just as industrial capitalism was transforming urban life.

In working for The Graphic Holl developed a powerful sense of narrative together with a economy of means. His wood engraving, “Gone – Euston Station” (1876) brings to life the moment of departure as women mourn their husbands, gone to Liverpool to catch the ships for emigration. It is a real event at a specific time and place.

But like French artists before him, Honore Daumier and Jean-Francois Millet – also admired by Van Gogh – Holl’s best paintings have a timeless sense of classical tragedy.

By bringing together Holl’s outstanding depictions of a fisherman’s family in Criccieth, Wales, where he returned year after year, we can see how deeply he was attached to a single family. Four paintings, all made in 1877, all have the same small window, the light falling dramatically from the left. It barely picks out the greys, pale blues and stark wooden furniture. A few simple plates stand on the window sill.

The latest in the series, Hope, shows the same strong mother figure, this time with four children who share her sense of apprehension. These Welsh paintings are stark and simple in comparison with Holl’s grander narratives like his cinematic Newgate, Committed for Trial.

His life was cut short, aged only 43.

picturing nature as a simple tragic existence.

more than once an unwilling spectator of domestic calamity.’

how relates to reportage.

Holls developed a truth to nature’ in terms of emotion as well as observation of objects.

Remarkable portraits.

The hallmark of Holls work is the penitration, power and eranestness

not taken in by the superfcilly exotic. But was driven by searching for real depth of understanding and empathy of what they portrayed.

As Wilfred Meynell express3ed it.

He set himself against falling into the conventionalities …

when setting to paint a life, to be come famailair and itimate sympathy of the costums and manners

a method painter.

Percusor to the documentary movement.

Dutch and flemish paintings. Attracted to the unspoilt simplcity of ways of life. Gives his work an edge. Yet it is sleak and beautiful