School of Art

Contact Details

School of Art
Aberystwyth University
Buarth Mawr
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 1NG

Tel: +44 (0)1970 622460

Fax: +44 (0)1970 622461

Email: artschool@aber.ac.uk

Edgar Holloway

On Reflection


7 December 2009 – 12 March 2010

Etchings from the School of Art Collection by Edgar Holloway (1914–2008) and his contemporaries, including Graham Sutherland, Bouverie Hoyton, F L Griggs and Gerald Brockhurst.

Edgar Holloway, Self Portrait No.6, 1932

Edgar Holloway, Self Portrait No.6, 1932


Edgar Holloway’s story is the stuff of which myths and artistic reputations are made. The son of a Yorkshire miner, he left school at fourteen to travel the countryside in pursuit of subjects for watercolours and etchings. By the age of twenty, Holloway was living in London where he staged two critically acclaimed solo exhibitions; his sitters for portraits included T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read and Stephen Spender, and his works were purchased by the British Museum, V&A and other leading collections.

Exhibited here for the first time alongside works by many of his celebrated friends and contemporaries—F. L. Griggs, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Robin Tanner, Joseph Webb and others—this display of Holloway etchings and engravings examines his significant contribution to British printmaking during the 1930s and ’40s. In 1949 he joined the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic on Ditchling Common established by Eric Gill. This concluded the first stage in his career as a printmaker when he became a graphic designer, letterer and cartographer. He did not take up etching again until 1969.

The School of Art Collection comprises European prints and drawings from the 15th century to present with strong holdings representing the Etching Revival from Whistler to the Print Boom the inter-war years. With the exception of a small number of loans, this exhibition has been drawn from the School’s Collection, which includes twenty-nine prints by Holloway.



 
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