Dudley HollandPollard Oak1946

In works like this 1946 linocut you can see Holland’s virtuosity in action; the startlingly varied mark-making demonstrating great confidence as well as abandon, lending truth to reports that he would routinely “go at” the lino with his pocketknife.

A ‘pollarded’ oak is one that has been cut back via a method used since Medieval times. Performed to prevent trees from growing too large, this intervention results in a strange, gnarled appearance. Holland’s work is often permeated by Classical or folkloric undercurrents, sometimes featuring figures that possess dryad or nymph-like qualities, with the oak here appearing unequivocally characterful and animate.

Dudley Holland was a painter, printmaker and muralist who is associated with the Neo-Romantic school. Born in 1915, Holland was a talented student, studying at the Chelsea School of Art and ultimately going on to teach, in Willesden, Harrow and Goldsmiths, becoming head of York School of Art (1949-1951). He was exhibited in the Royal Academy and Redfern Gallery, Cork Street.

Holland remains something of an enigmatic footnote of the era. Purportedly a charismatic and intense character – a quixotic mix of the magnetic and the offensive – he died tragically at only 41 years old in a motorcycle accident.

Spanning different mediums with great virtuosity, his brilliance as a draughtsman always providing a strong underpinning. His oils bear resemblance to the work of John Nash, but there is something altogether more sinuous to his printmaking.