James Holland was born on the 19th September 1905, at Gillingham in Kent, the son of a naval blacksmith. He was educated at the Mathematical School Rochester, at which he won the President's Prize from the Royal Drawing School and a painting scholarship to Rochester School of Art. In 1924 he attended the School of Painting at the Royal College of Art in London, when the Principal was William Rothenstein, his tutor was Paul Nash and his contemporaries included Henry Moore, Edward Bawden, Barnett Freedman and James Boswell.
Holland held his first exhibition while still at the College and organised the RCA Sketch Club, where he came in contact with leading painters of the day including Wilson Steer, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.
In the late twenties, Holland went to live in Whistler's old studio in Fitzroy Street and worked as a painter, illustrator and designer, exhibiting his early work at the Warren Gallerty, the Zwemmer Gallery, the Bloomsbury Gallery and the Royal Academy. At this time he started working on advertisements for Shell and illustrations for dailies and magazines including Country Life, Night & Day and Lilliput. Together with James Boswell and James Fitton - the "three James" - Holland produced many anti-fascist and anti-war cartoons for Left Review and other publications.
In 1937 Holland worked with Misha Black on the Peace Pavillion in Paris. The "three James" with Diana Uhlman, Edith Simon, Pearl Binder, Millicent Rose and Misha Black helped form the Artists International Association. He was also a member of the London Group and the New English Art Club.
In 1940 Holland joined the Ministry of Information, working with Misha Black, Milner Gray and James Gardner on exhibition designs including gas showrooms, a replica coal mine and the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow.
When the Festival of Britain was proposed in 1948, Holland became part of a team comprising Misha Black, Ralph Tubbs and James Gardner under the leadership of Hugh Casson, the Festival's Director of Architecture. It was decided each member of the team should design a section of the site. Holland chose "Sea and Ships". To his delight, the First Lord of the Admiralty offered him the aircraft carrier Campania to tour Britain as a floating exhibition hall of which he was the designer in charge. When the Exhibition closed, he was appointed OBE.
After the Festival he returned to advertising and freelance illustration and was involved in reactivating the Society of Industrial Artists, serving as President of the Society in 1960/61. He became interested in design education and was a member of the DES working group and the Coldstream Committee. In 1963 he was appointed Head of Faculty of Visual Communication at Birmingham Polytechnic and subsequently became a visiting lecturer at Leicester Polytechnic. He was assessor and Governor at several art colleges and in 1971 took on the post of Education Officer for the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (now the Chartered Society of Designers) where he used his experience to help structure increasingly more professional design courses. In 1980 he wrote Minerva at Fifty - a history of the Society.
Thoughout his life, James Holland continued to paint and write; and whilst in retirement in Kent enjoyed running an art class. He completed his last painting two weeks before his death on the 7th January 1996.