[From the catalogue-in-progress for “Landscapes & Livestock”, a loan exhibition for Agincourt Homecoming in the Fall of 2015]
HOLLAND, George Herbert Buckingham [1901–1987]
“Leicester Market at Night”
c1940
oil on canvas / 17 3/4 x 21 3/4 inches
In the spirit of American artist James McNeill Whistler, this modest painting by G.H.B. Holland might well have been titled “Nocturne in Umber and Sepia” for all its moody murkiness. Holland’s velvety browns must have merged with the walls of pre-WWI interiors lit only by forty-watt incandescent bulbs. But biographical information on him is slight, so an exploration of the artist’s career—and an answer to this painting’s echoes of the 19th century—will have to wait.
Leicester Market continues to be Britain’s largest outdoor public market, though its appearance has changed somewhat since Holland’s undated recording.
