James Holland, 20th Century Artist

Birmingham before it was regenerated

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!

 

Mentioned in passing

I had to admit that the title for this post is probably in rather bad taste, however it is an apt description.  I was made aware today of the passing of Dorrit Dekk - a female graphic designer at a time when the sector was predominantly male by all accounts.  Her obituary in The Guardian is charmingly written, but for me the novelty was to read about her working contacts with my father.

She worked for the Central Office of Information and also on the Festival of Britain, contributing to the travelling land exhibition.  She sounds like she was a great character, and I am sorry I never got to meet her.

Her obituary can be found at http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/07/dorrit-dekk

 

The South Bank and the Festival Ship

As mentioned in the Biography note, my father was one of the key designers of the Festival of Britain.  On the South Bank itself, he led on the Sea and Ships pavilion while he also lead the team that set up the Campania to be the floating exhibition that went round the key ports of Britain.

For years we had a box of stuff linked to the Festival in Dad's studio, including his Gold Pass and various documents and papers, but we have donated this to the Festival of Britain Society, as that seemed the appropriate place for it.  I do still have a battered lapel pin that must have done service on jackets over the years, and I do have a photograph of the model of the South Bank site, which is rather splendid.

We also have a number of artist's drafts and watercolours of the Campania, a monochrome version of which is shown below.

 

Perhaps my favourite bit of Festival memorabilia that we still have in the family is the photo below however - presumably a press or PR photo - taken when my father was showing the Royal Family around the site.  The King and Queen are talking to my father, although the former seems to be moving on a bit.

 
 
The Today programme is doing a special edition from the South Bank on Friday 22 April 2011 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Festival.