From early visits to the country with Jim Boswell in the 1920s onwards, Holland had a passion for France and made many regular visits, normally with paints or a sketch book. In October 1987, he and his wife had been on a tour of Normandy and a couple of days before they were due to return to Kent, on the 15th October, they stopped at Duclair on the Seine, where they loved to stay at the Hotel de la Poste.
My mother recalls that there was a sense of drama, and the colours of the sky and the countryside were different. My father was particularly inspired and did a number of sketches by the river, that culminated in this painting - Before the storm 1987, the Seine near Duclair. He was able to express the sense of foreboding and the arrival of the storm with his favourite colour palette - purple and green. That night was a wild one in Normandy as well as in Kent, and when my parents returned home, it was to find the garage crushed by a tree, and they were without power for about 6 weeks. While they were lucky to have an open fire, my father confessed he would be happy not to see another jacket potato for a number of years, once power was restored!!
Oil on board, unsigned, framed, with authentification on rear, shown at The Art Connoisseur Gallery, London, 1997.