Today we have another article from our Australian correspondant, looking at Holland's love affair with Normandy.
As has been acknowledged many times in this series of articles, my father was an ardent Francophile, a trait that he engendered in his family. In the early 1960s we holidayed at Ann Duveen's beautiful house, Capricorn(e?), just outside St Paul de Vence. However, the austerity years of the mid 1960s, when Sterling was devalued and a limit of 50 Pounds per person for overseas consumption was introduced, meant that the South of France became an impossibility. The Hollands, augmented by my aunt Kay, therefore chose to visit Normandy. Based a few kilometers outside Dieppe in the tiny village of Ste Marguerite sur Mer, then celebrating the 25th anniversary of the "Dieppe Landings" of August 1942, Holland proceeded to explore the rugged coastline of Vasterival whilst my sister and I yearned for the long sandy beach of Veules-Les-Roses.
Vasterival, Normandy
Dieppe
Duclair Ferry
This visit renewed Holland's interest in Northern France, and subsequent years found him touring Normandy to places such as Domfront and Duclair, where he painted several scenes involving the charming ferry that crosses the Seine there. He also returned to Brittany and painted several characteristic views of St Malo and the surrounding countryside. To my immense pleasure on one of these subsequent trips, I was able to show him a place that he had never previously visited, the ruined Abbey of Jumieges. This former Benedictine Abbey, home to one of the chroniclers of The Norman Conquest, became one of Holland's favourite stops on any visit to Normandy and was the subject of many sketches and paintings.
Jumieges Abbey
Jumieges Church
Jumieges village