In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Holland was Head of Faculty, Visual Communication at Birmingham College of Art (then Polytechnic from 1971). Of course all things change, and Birmingham Poly morphed into the University of Central England in 1992 and then into Birmingham City University in 2007.
Holland lived in digs with the artist Bill Gear with whom he had much in common - both had experienced Bergen-Belsen after the War, both had worked on the Festival of Britain and both now worked at the College of Art.
In this period, Holland produced a number of paintings in oil on board and on a large scale - many pictures were at least 3 feet wide - and in black interspersed with vivid colours not always associated with Birmingham and the Black Country. A number of these will be shown on the website, but if looking for similarities with the area today, you will be challenged. The picture below shows one of the many canal junctions in Birmingham, not at all the image the city would now like to project.
[Canal Junction, oil on board, unframed, available for purchase]
The University was invited to the private view of Holland's retrospective exhibition in London, and the representative that attended not only held Holland's old post, but had also been a student of his as well. He said he had once had the temerity to draw a boat during class, and then spent a long time with Holland who explained exactly where he had gone wrong!