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Published by wizzer51555, 2019-12-15 09:58:45

mercer_art_gallery2017

The STAnley & Audrey
BurTon GAllery






A




Constance Pearson

Malham Family




Philippa Holmes

of Painters




Katharine Holmes

First published in 2009 The Stanley & Audrey Contents
to coincide with the Burton Gallery
exhibition A Malham university of leeds
Family of Painters, Parkinson Building
30 June – 5 September Woodhouse lane
2009 leeds lS2 9JT A Malham Family
of Painters
© The Stanley & Audrey Cover: Constance Pearson,
Burton Gallery, except Malham Cove, hilAry diAPer 4
where otherwise stated oil on canvas
Katharine holmes:
iSBn designed by Joe Gilmore,
13 978-1-874331-39-1 Qubik, leeds The Poetry of landscape
eAn www.qubik.com
9781874331391 lynne Green 18
Printed by northend
All rights reserved. no
part of this publication Acknowledgements 26
may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval
system or transmit-
ted in any form or by
any means, electrical,
mechanical or otherwise,
without first seeking the
permission of the copy-
right owners and
of the publishers.

First published in 2009 The Stanley & Audrey Contents
to coincide with the Burton Gallery
exhibition A Malham university of leeds
Family of Painters, Parkinson Building
30 June – 5 September Woodhouse lane
2009 leeds lS2 9JT A Malham Family
of Painters
© The Stanley & Audrey Cover: Constance Pearson,
Burton Gallery, except Malham Cove, hilAry diAPer 4
where otherwise stated oil on canvas
Katharine holmes:
iSBn designed by Joe Gilmore,
13 978-1-874331-39-1 Qubik, leeds The Poetry of landscape
eAn www.qubik.com
9781874331391 lynne Green 18
Printed by northend
All rights reserved. no
part of this publication Acknowledgements 26
may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval
system or transmit-
ted in any form or by
any means, electrical,
mechanical or otherwise,
without first seeking the
permission of the copy-
right owners and
of the publishers.

4 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 5




A Malham Family
of Painters

hilAry diAPer




in 1999, the university Gallery leeds exhibited a new body of experi- Sidney Pearson Camping with
mental work by Katharine holmes, based around her monumental Constance and the Family,
painting of Gordale Scar. This spectacular limestone ravine, formed 1930s
oil on canvas
millions of years ago by the melt waters of an ice sheet, has been the
inspiration for many artists and writers over the centuries, but as the
painter norman Adams commented, Katharine had ‘found her own way
to show us something new about this grand natural monument. Being a
genuine yorkshirewoman, a native of Malham, which is less than a mile
from Gordale, she has lived with this awe-inspiring cloven crag for most
of her life’. This observation, equating nativeness with authenticity,
1
rehearses a familiar and cogent rhetoric of the romantic tradition, claim-
ing a spiritual affiliation that lifts landscape painting above topography
Constance Pearson setting off to or the mere recording of appearance. it also prompts further exploration
paint from high Barn Cottage of the notion of ‘living with’ or ‘being of’ the landscape, and how far this
(Courtesy Pearson Family
Archive) informs and moulds a painter’s vision. The daughter of Philippa holmes,
who was in turn the daughter of Constance Pearson, Katharine is the
1. norman Adams, ‘Katharine youngest of three generations of women artists, all living in Malham.
holmes – Painter’, in “The Sav-
age Aspect of the Place” New of this family of Malham painters only one is native to the place and of the Second World War, her circumstances were partly dictated by her 4. This was after Sidney went
Paintings of Gordale Scar by yet, each in their own way, they have made it their own. growing family and by her husband’s career as a school teacher – first at to denmark in 1913 to study
Katharine Holmes, first pub- rastrick (near Brighouse) as art teacher at the local grammar school, then Physical education at the Slke-
lished in connection with the borg institute, to enable him to
4
exhibition held at the university at Bradford Grammar School, and finally at Thornton Grammar School teach it as a second subject. it
Gallery leeds from 27 January Constance D. Pearson (1886-1970) in Bradford. Sidney also taught evening classes and WeA classes on the was during his teaching period
to 5 March 1999 (leeds, 1999), history of art and, during the depression of the 1930s, contributed to the at Bradford Grammar School
pp.8-11 (p.11). that Sidney first met the young
2. rawdon School was opened Born in leeds, Constance damaris was the second of seven children born activities organised at the centre opened by the Quakers in Bradford to richard eurich and encouraged
in 1832, and girls were admitted to William and esther Carter. her father ran a grocery shop with three help the unemployed. Constance always paid tribute to the fact that her his promising talent. in 1919,
as early as 1835. it faced many apprentices. As one of the older children of a large family, she had an husband was, from the beginning, supportive and encouraging of her work. richard eurich was invited by
financial struggles, and was Sidney to join the friends and
eventually closed in 1920. The industrious childhood, helping in the shop as well as with the family. indeed, while Sidney taught at Bradford Grammar School, Constance family on a painting expedition
Society of Friends deposited a however, her parents being Quakers, Constance – like most of the would spend the week away from home – painting – rather than follow to Sandsend, near Whitby, for
number of records of the School other Carter children – benefited from a liberal education by attending the more usual duties of a schoolmaster’s wife. Sidney would join her a month. eurich maintained a
in the Brotherton library at the lengthy correspondence with
2
university of leeds, and Katha- rawdon School. at the week-ends at the studio they rented near Bolton Abbey. By all both Sidney and Constance dur-
rine holmes has recently made After Constance left rawdon at the head of the School, she con- accounts, Sidney and Constance were gregarious, sociable and compas- ing their lives, and paid public
3
an important gift of letters and tinued to help in the shop, regularly baking bread and teacakes. Whilst sionate people. Many friendships were formed, not only through their tribute to them both for their
photographs from the Carter constant encouragement. his
5
family archives to the univer- working in the shop, she won a scholarship to attend leeds School activities with the Bradford Meeting of the Society of Friends, but also letters to the family have been
sity. of Art in the evenings, and this rapidly led to a full-time scholarship through the various acquaintances Sidney would bring home, including given to the university of leeds
3. The silver badge awarded from 1906 to 1909. Among her contemporaries were evelyn Frank, several refugees from europe at the outbreak of the Second World War. by Katharine holmes, and are
to her on this occasion forms held in the Special Collections
part of a further group of items emily and Philip Whitehouse, Sidney John Pearson, Fred lawson, it is clear, however, that they shared a great attraction for the country section of the library.
deposited in the university by George Graham and Jacob Kramer (who was six years younger than rather than the city. From student days onwards, they both enjoyed 5. Sidney was clerk of the Brad-
Katharine holmes in 2008. ford Meeting, and also worked
Constance). Many of these artists were to remain lifelong friends, and painting excursions with friends, and in early married life made regu- for them as an official visitor to
Sidney Pearson became her husband. Constance left leeds for a brief lar visits to runswick Bay and Staithes, where there were flourishing Wakefield Prison.
period to teach at a technical college in Cornwall, but returned after colonies of artists. For a short time, they lived near Austwick, spending
two years to marry Sidney. From that time through until the beginning the summer under canvas and the winter at Brunton house in Feizor.

4 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 5




A Malham Family
of Painters

hilAry diAPer




in 1999, the university Gallery leeds exhibited a new body of experi- Sidney Pearson Camping with
mental work by Katharine holmes, based around her monumental Constance and the Family,
painting of Gordale Scar. This spectacular limestone ravine, formed 1930s
oil on canvas
millions of years ago by the melt waters of an ice sheet, has been the
inspiration for many artists and writers over the centuries, but as the
painter norman Adams commented, Katharine had ‘found her own way
to show us something new about this grand natural monument. Being a
genuine yorkshirewoman, a native of Malham, which is less than a mile
from Gordale, she has lived with this awe-inspiring cloven crag for most
of her life’. This observation, equating nativeness with authenticity,
1
rehearses a familiar and cogent rhetoric of the romantic tradition, claim-
ing a spiritual affiliation that lifts landscape painting above topography
Constance Pearson setting off to or the mere recording of appearance. it also prompts further exploration
paint from high Barn Cottage of the notion of ‘living with’ or ‘being of’ the landscape, and how far this
(Courtesy Pearson Family
Archive) informs and moulds a painter’s vision. The daughter of Philippa holmes,
who was in turn the daughter of Constance Pearson, Katharine is the
1. norman Adams, ‘Katharine youngest of three generations of women artists, all living in Malham.
holmes – Painter’, in “The Sav-
age Aspect of the Place” New of this family of Malham painters only one is native to the place and of the Second World War, her circumstances were partly dictated by her 4. This was after Sidney went
Paintings of Gordale Scar by yet, each in their own way, they have made it their own. growing family and by her husband’s career as a school teacher – first at to denmark in 1913 to study
Katharine Holmes, first pub- rastrick (near Brighouse) as art teacher at the local grammar school, then Physical education at the Slke-
lished in connection with the borg institute, to enable him to
4
exhibition held at the university at Bradford Grammar School, and finally at Thornton Grammar School teach it as a second subject. it
Gallery leeds from 27 January Constance D. Pearson (1886-1970) in Bradford. Sidney also taught evening classes and WeA classes on the was during his teaching period
to 5 March 1999 (leeds, 1999), history of art and, during the depression of the 1930s, contributed to the at Bradford Grammar School
pp.8-11 (p.11). that Sidney first met the young
2. rawdon School was opened Born in leeds, Constance damaris was the second of seven children born activities organised at the centre opened by the Quakers in Bradford to richard eurich and encouraged
in 1832, and girls were admitted to William and esther Carter. her father ran a grocery shop with three help the unemployed. Constance always paid tribute to the fact that her his promising talent. in 1919,
as early as 1835. it faced many apprentices. As one of the older children of a large family, she had an husband was, from the beginning, supportive and encouraging of her work. richard eurich was invited by
financial struggles, and was Sidney to join the friends and
eventually closed in 1920. The industrious childhood, helping in the shop as well as with the family. indeed, while Sidney taught at Bradford Grammar School, Constance family on a painting expedition
Society of Friends deposited a however, her parents being Quakers, Constance – like most of the would spend the week away from home – painting – rather than follow to Sandsend, near Whitby, for
number of records of the School other Carter children – benefited from a liberal education by attending the more usual duties of a schoolmaster’s wife. Sidney would join her a month. eurich maintained a
in the Brotherton library at the lengthy correspondence with
2
university of leeds, and Katha- rawdon School. at the week-ends at the studio they rented near Bolton Abbey. By all both Sidney and Constance dur-
rine holmes has recently made After Constance left rawdon at the head of the School, she con- accounts, Sidney and Constance were gregarious, sociable and compas- ing their lives, and paid public
3
an important gift of letters and tinued to help in the shop, regularly baking bread and teacakes. Whilst sionate people. Many friendships were formed, not only through their tribute to them both for their
photographs from the Carter constant encouragement. his
5
family archives to the univer- working in the shop, she won a scholarship to attend leeds School activities with the Bradford Meeting of the Society of Friends, but also letters to the family have been
sity. of Art in the evenings, and this rapidly led to a full-time scholarship through the various acquaintances Sidney would bring home, including given to the university of leeds
3. The silver badge awarded from 1906 to 1909. Among her contemporaries were evelyn Frank, several refugees from europe at the outbreak of the Second World War. by Katharine holmes, and are
to her on this occasion forms held in the Special Collections
part of a further group of items emily and Philip Whitehouse, Sidney John Pearson, Fred lawson, it is clear, however, that they shared a great attraction for the country section of the library.
deposited in the university by George Graham and Jacob Kramer (who was six years younger than rather than the city. From student days onwards, they both enjoyed 5. Sidney was clerk of the Brad-
Katharine holmes in 2008. ford Meeting, and also worked
Constance). Many of these artists were to remain lifelong friends, and painting excursions with friends, and in early married life made regu- for them as an official visitor to
Sidney Pearson became her husband. Constance left leeds for a brief lar visits to runswick Bay and Staithes, where there were flourishing Wakefield Prison.
period to teach at a technical college in Cornwall, but returned after colonies of artists. For a short time, they lived near Austwick, spending
two years to marry Sidney. From that time through until the beginning the summer under canvas and the winter at Brunton house in Feizor.

6 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 7




The itinerant life ended when Sidney started to teach at Thornton Gram- Constance Pearson
mar School, remaining there until he retired in the early 1940s. Their The Miss Carters in the Garden
at High Barn Cottage, in Spring
family home then was on northcliffe lane in Thornton, and they rented Watercolour on paper
Folly hall in the Washburn Valley for holidays. Both homes were to
become regular gathering places for their wide circle of artist friends and
leeds School of Art 1910. colleagues, as well as their extended family. Travel was always by bus,
Constance Carter is in the third for they never owned a car, and everything – including heavy painting
row from the front, fifth from equipment – had to be carried. limestone country had been a favourite
the left. (Courtesy Pearson
Family Archive) destination since student days, and the Pearsons formed a strong friend-
ship with helen neatby, headmistress of Ackworth, who had a holiday
6. These details are taken home in Malham. When Sidney retired from teaching, he and Constance
from the extensive notes pre-
6
pared by Philippa holmes for moved to Malham and settled at high Barn Cottage. This is the house
W.r.Mitchell, whose article that Constance lived in for the rest of her life, and which has passed
‘Constance Pearson: an Artist down through the generations - to Philippa and in turn to Katharine.
in Malhamdale’, was published
in The Dalesman, Volume 46,
no.2, (May 1984), 114-118.
7. her older brother and sister, Philippa Holmes (1921-1999)
Kenneth Whitfield and Marga-
ret, were born in Bradford and
her younger sister, Constance Born in Aberford, Philippa June Pearson was the third of Constance and
Mary, at Giggleswick.
Sidney’s four children, and attended Thornton Grammar School, where never married – elsie was a teacher and esther was a nurse – added a
7
her father was teaching. With both parents committed artists, and her lively dimension to the household, and both lived into their eighties. it
holidays spent on the famous painting trips, it is perhaps unsurprising was in the mid 1960s, after esther had died and Constance was becom-
that after completing her School Certificate, Philippa was to continue ing rather infirm, that the holmes family moved to live at high Barn
her education by attending art school, in Bradford. raised as a Quaker, Cottage and Philippa spent much of her time nursing her mother as well
and inheriting her father’s particular sense of social responsibility, she as making a home with her surviving aunt, her husband and her young
started her career as an occupational therapist, working in South Wales. daughter. Constance died in 1970, and elsie died not long afterwards.
during the war, this work was focused on rehabilitation for servicemen Philippa gradually resumed her involvement with the community, help-
through craftwork. like her parents, Philippa was drawn to the coun- ing with the local Brownies, and working as a dinner lady at the local
tryside and shared their great love of nature. however, her work took school. high Barn Cottage continued to draw many visiting friends and
her to some of the most heavily industrialized parts of the country. After family, as well as the paying bed-and-breakfast guests.
the war, and into the early 1950s, she continued occupational therapy
work in hospitals, both in oldham and in Gateshead. While in oldham,
she was also involved with the Co-operative education Programme in Katharine Holmes (b.1962)
art and crafts. later she trained as a teacher at Bretton hall College near
Wakefield, specializing in Art and english for junior schools. her last The only child born to Philippa and Ted holmes, Katharine was born
post was at a residential school for children with special needs. in Keighley and brought home in the snow to Kirk Syke in 1962.
in 1957, Philippa married edward holmes. during and after the From the age of three or four, when her parents moved to high Barn
Second World War, Ted had served in the Merchant navy as an engineer. Cottage, she was spending time with her grandmother in the studio,
Afterwards, he came to work in the dales, using his expertise to assist in squeezing out tubes of oil paint and dabbling with watercolours, raised
bringing electricity and associated mechanization to outlying farms. he in a happy, domestic and rural life, largely governed by a formidable
was a lodger at high Barn Cottage. like her mother before her, Philippa group of women – artists, teachers, and independent professionals.
gave up teaching when she married. She settled into full time work both Such nurturing strongly encouraged her inherent creativity, further
as a homemaker and, increasingly, as a carer for her mother. Philippa strengthened by her education at Skipton Girls’ high School, where her
and Ted’s first married home was a house rented from the Wright art teacher was Michael leeming. Katharine went on to study Fine Art
farming family at Kirk Syke, which is just outside Airton and about two at the university of newcastle. later she trained as a paper conservator
and a half miles from Malham. Sidney Pearson had died in 1948, and at the university of northumberland in Gateshead, and worked at Ab-
two of Constance’s sisters – elsie and esther – had joined her at high bott hall in Kendal and at the hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. She
Barn Cottage. The two Miss Carters, both professional women who had returned to live in the dales in 1990. As Katharine started to exhibit

6 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 7




The itinerant life ended when Sidney started to teach at Thornton Gram- Constance Pearson
mar School, remaining there until he retired in the early 1940s. Their The Miss Carters in the Garden
at High Barn Cottage, in Spring
family home then was on northcliffe lane in Thornton, and they rented Watercolour on paper
Folly hall in the Washburn Valley for holidays. Both homes were to
become regular gathering places for their wide circle of artist friends and
leeds School of Art 1910. colleagues, as well as their extended family. Travel was always by bus,
Constance Carter is in the third for they never owned a car, and everything – including heavy painting
row from the front, fifth from equipment – had to be carried. limestone country had been a favourite
the left. (Courtesy Pearson
Family Archive) destination since student days, and the Pearsons formed a strong friend-
ship with helen neatby, headmistress of Ackworth, who had a holiday
6. These details are taken home in Malham. When Sidney retired from teaching, he and Constance
from the extensive notes pre-
6
pared by Philippa holmes for moved to Malham and settled at high Barn Cottage. This is the house
W.r.Mitchell, whose article that Constance lived in for the rest of her life, and which has passed
‘Constance Pearson: an Artist down through the generations - to Philippa and in turn to Katharine.
in Malhamdale’, was published
in The Dalesman, Volume 46,
no.2, (May 1984), 114-118.
7. her older brother and sister, Philippa Holmes (1921-1999)
Kenneth Whitfield and Marga-
ret, were born in Bradford and
her younger sister, Constance Born in Aberford, Philippa June Pearson was the third of Constance and
Mary, at Giggleswick.
Sidney’s four children, and attended Thornton Grammar School, where never married – elsie was a teacher and esther was a nurse – added a
7
her father was teaching. With both parents committed artists, and her lively dimension to the household, and both lived into their eighties. it
holidays spent on the famous painting trips, it is perhaps unsurprising was in the mid 1960s, after esther had died and Constance was becom-
that after completing her School Certificate, Philippa was to continue ing rather infirm, that the holmes family moved to live at high Barn
her education by attending art school, in Bradford. raised as a Quaker, Cottage and Philippa spent much of her time nursing her mother as well
and inheriting her father’s particular sense of social responsibility, she as making a home with her surviving aunt, her husband and her young
started her career as an occupational therapist, working in South Wales. daughter. Constance died in 1970, and elsie died not long afterwards.
during the war, this work was focused on rehabilitation for servicemen Philippa gradually resumed her involvement with the community, help-
through craftwork. like her parents, Philippa was drawn to the coun- ing with the local Brownies, and working as a dinner lady at the local
tryside and shared their great love of nature. however, her work took school. high Barn Cottage continued to draw many visiting friends and
her to some of the most heavily industrialized parts of the country. After family, as well as the paying bed-and-breakfast guests.
the war, and into the early 1950s, she continued occupational therapy
work in hospitals, both in oldham and in Gateshead. While in oldham,
she was also involved with the Co-operative education Programme in Katharine Holmes (b.1962)
art and crafts. later she trained as a teacher at Bretton hall College near
Wakefield, specializing in Art and english for junior schools. her last The only child born to Philippa and Ted holmes, Katharine was born
post was at a residential school for children with special needs. in Keighley and brought home in the snow to Kirk Syke in 1962.
in 1957, Philippa married edward holmes. during and after the From the age of three or four, when her parents moved to high Barn
Second World War, Ted had served in the Merchant navy as an engineer. Cottage, she was spending time with her grandmother in the studio,
Afterwards, he came to work in the dales, using his expertise to assist in squeezing out tubes of oil paint and dabbling with watercolours, raised
bringing electricity and associated mechanization to outlying farms. he in a happy, domestic and rural life, largely governed by a formidable
was a lodger at high Barn Cottage. like her mother before her, Philippa group of women – artists, teachers, and independent professionals.
gave up teaching when she married. She settled into full time work both Such nurturing strongly encouraged her inherent creativity, further
as a homemaker and, increasingly, as a carer for her mother. Philippa strengthened by her education at Skipton Girls’ high School, where her
and Ted’s first married home was a house rented from the Wright art teacher was Michael leeming. Katharine went on to study Fine Art
farming family at Kirk Syke, which is just outside Airton and about two at the university of newcastle. later she trained as a paper conservator
and a half miles from Malham. Sidney Pearson had died in 1948, and at the university of northumberland in Gateshead, and worked at Ab-
two of Constance’s sisters – elsie and esther – had joined her at high bott hall in Kendal and at the hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow. She
Barn Cottage. The two Miss Carters, both professional women who had returned to live in the dales in 1990. As Katharine started to exhibit

8 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 9







































































Constance Pearson top: Constance Pearson above: Constance Pearson
Yeoman’s Cottage, Brunton House, Feizor, Hellebores
Kirkby Malham, 1950s in the Snow oil on board
oil on board oil on canvas

8 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 9







































































Constance Pearson top: Constance Pearson above: Constance Pearson
Yeoman’s Cottage, Brunton House, Feizor, Hellebores
Kirkby Malham, 1950s in the Snow oil on board
oil on board oil on canvas

10 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 11




Constance Pearson Constance Pearson
A Spring Day, Tanpits Beck, Dry Stonewalling Competition,
Malham Kilnsey Show
Watercolour on paper Watercolour on paper
8. As Stuart Macdonald has 10. The deposit also includes
commented, ‘the local School of some of the original drawings
art, released from the control of submitted for examination,
the Science and Art department, including Constance’s study
municipalized, and now direct- of plant forms, and Sidney’s
ed by the Technical instruction designs incorporating plant
Committee of the local coun- forms. There are also studies of
cil, changed its character com- seashells, hedgerow plants and
pletely between 1900 and 1914. autumn berries, and a compos-
From being a drawing school it ite sheet of designs for an em-
assumed the dual character of a broidered pocket, lustred dish
school of art and a trade school.’ and oxidised pendant, by her
Stuart Macdonald, The History contemporary evelyn Frank. A
and Philosophy of Art Educa- pendant in the form of a cir-
tion (london, 1970), p.301. cular boss set with stones, de-
9. david Boswell, ‘Arts with signed and made by Constance
Crafts – Battles over British Art and later converted to a brooch,
education and their impact on has also been deposited, to-
leeds institute’s School of Art’, gether with the pendant’s origi-
in Behind the Mosaic One Hun- nal presentation board for the
dred Years of Art Education, A.M.Certificate Group i, 1907.
edited by Corinne Miller (leeds, 11. Macdonald, op.cit., p.349.
2003) pp.17-44 (p.17).
her work, it sold well, and in the second half of the decade she made Constance Carter received a national Medal for Success in Art,
the momentous decision to ‘go it alone’ – that is, to live by her painting. awarded by the Board of education, after undertaking a total of 34
She moved to live and work in a small rented house-cum-studio – ‘the examinations between 1905 and 1909. The medals, together with the
Potting Shed’ – in Clapham. Much of this time was also given over certificates both Constance and Sidney received following their exami-
to caring for her ailing parents. Philippa died in 1999; Ted died eight nations, have been deposited at the university of leeds by Katharine
years later. in 2007, Katharine decided to move back to live at high holmes, and the latter provide a vivid snapshot of the training they
Barn Cottage, and once again the house has resumed its role as studio, undertook: Stages 1 and 2 of design, Perspective, Memory drawing of
exhibiting space and a hospitable refuge for friends and family, artists, Plant Form, Freehand drawing in outline, drawing on the Blackboard,
painters and photographers. Model drawing, Geometrical drawing, drawing from the Antique,
The work of these three generations of women painters has been drawing the Antique from Memory, Painting ornament, drawing in
moulded by their different circumstances, not least their education light and Shade from a Cast, Painting from Still life, Modelling design
in art. Stages 1 and 2, Model drawing, drawing from life, historic ornament,
in 1902, a new education Act placed the Schools of Art under Principles of ornament, and Anatomy. 10
8
the newly-created local education authorities. The influence of the Philippa enrolled at Bradford School of Art at the time when art-
South Kensington School had already begun to lose its grip, and its school life, like most other things, was severely disrupted by the Second
emphasis on art and industry was eroding. As david Boswell has World War. The more memorable time for Philippa began in 1951 when,
commented: with many other mature students who were resuming education after
their service during the war, she went to Bretton hall College. Founded
The design of the new leeds School of Art in 1901 attempted to just two years previously by Alec Clegg, Bretton specialized in innovative
combine long-accepted methods, which gave priority to the skills courses in design, music and the visual and performance arts in its training
of draughtsmanship, and modelling with a renewed emphasis on of teachers.
practical crafts. This fulfilled the aims of the leeds institute for Methods in art teaching had undergone dramatic change in the
Science, Art and literature when they appointed haywood rider 1930s, initiated largely by figures such as Marion richardson and
as headmaster in 1889, which were fully achieved in the decade r.r.Tomlinson. Perhaps more popularly remembered today for her
11
before the First World War. in doing so leeds was in the vanguard methods of teaching hand-writing, as an art teacher richardson encour-
of the Schools of Art that imbibed and implemented the philosophy aged her pupils to produce work with little instruction, rather than a
of the Arts & Crafts Movement. 9 formal drawing syllabus, developing methods which were centred on

10 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 11




Constance Pearson Constance Pearson
A Spring Day, Tanpits Beck, Dry Stonewalling Competition,
Malham Kilnsey Show
Watercolour on paper Watercolour on paper
8. As Stuart Macdonald has 10. The deposit also includes
commented, ‘the local School of some of the original drawings
art, released from the control of submitted for examination,
the Science and Art department, including Constance’s study
municipalized, and now direct- of plant forms, and Sidney’s
ed by the Technical instruction designs incorporating plant
Committee of the local coun- forms. There are also studies of
cil, changed its character com- seashells, hedgerow plants and
pletely between 1900 and 1914. autumn berries, and a compos-
From being a drawing school it ite sheet of designs for an em-
assumed the dual character of a broidered pocket, lustred dish
school of art and a trade school.’ and oxidised pendant, by her
Stuart Macdonald, The History contemporary evelyn Frank. A
and Philosophy of Art Educa- pendant in the form of a cir-
tion (london, 1970), p.301. cular boss set with stones, de-
9. david Boswell, ‘Arts with signed and made by Constance
Crafts – Battles over British Art and later converted to a brooch,
education and their impact on has also been deposited, to-
leeds institute’s School of Art’, gether with the pendant’s origi-
in Behind the Mosaic One Hun- nal presentation board for the
dred Years of Art Education, A.M.Certificate Group i, 1907.
edited by Corinne Miller (leeds, 11. Macdonald, op.cit., p.349.
2003) pp.17-44 (p.17).
her work, it sold well, and in the second half of the decade she made Constance Carter received a national Medal for Success in Art,
the momentous decision to ‘go it alone’ – that is, to live by her painting. awarded by the Board of education, after undertaking a total of 34
She moved to live and work in a small rented house-cum-studio – ‘the examinations between 1905 and 1909. The medals, together with the
Potting Shed’ – in Clapham. Much of this time was also given over certificates both Constance and Sidney received following their exami-
to caring for her ailing parents. Philippa died in 1999; Ted died eight nations, have been deposited at the university of leeds by Katharine
years later. in 2007, Katharine decided to move back to live at high holmes, and the latter provide a vivid snapshot of the training they
Barn Cottage, and once again the house has resumed its role as studio, undertook: Stages 1 and 2 of design, Perspective, Memory drawing of
exhibiting space and a hospitable refuge for friends and family, artists, Plant Form, Freehand drawing in outline, drawing on the Blackboard,
painters and photographers. Model drawing, Geometrical drawing, drawing from the Antique,
The work of these three generations of women painters has been drawing the Antique from Memory, Painting ornament, drawing in
moulded by their different circumstances, not least their education light and Shade from a Cast, Painting from Still life, Modelling design
in art. Stages 1 and 2, Model drawing, drawing from life, historic ornament,
in 1902, a new education Act placed the Schools of Art under Principles of ornament, and Anatomy. 10
8
the newly-created local education authorities. The influence of the Philippa enrolled at Bradford School of Art at the time when art-
South Kensington School had already begun to lose its grip, and its school life, like most other things, was severely disrupted by the Second
emphasis on art and industry was eroding. As david Boswell has World War. The more memorable time for Philippa began in 1951 when,
commented: with many other mature students who were resuming education after
their service during the war, she went to Bretton hall College. Founded
The design of the new leeds School of Art in 1901 attempted to just two years previously by Alec Clegg, Bretton specialized in innovative
combine long-accepted methods, which gave priority to the skills courses in design, music and the visual and performance arts in its training
of draughtsmanship, and modelling with a renewed emphasis on of teachers.
practical crafts. This fulfilled the aims of the leeds institute for Methods in art teaching had undergone dramatic change in the
Science, Art and literature when they appointed haywood rider 1930s, initiated largely by figures such as Marion richardson and
as headmaster in 1889, which were fully achieved in the decade r.r.Tomlinson. Perhaps more popularly remembered today for her
11
before the First World War. in doing so leeds was in the vanguard methods of teaching hand-writing, as an art teacher richardson encour-
of the Schools of Art that imbibed and implemented the philosophy aged her pupils to produce work with little instruction, rather than a
of the Arts & Crafts Movement. 9 formal drawing syllabus, developing methods which were centred on

12 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 13







































































Philippa Holmes Constance Pearson
Parkland landscape, (?Bretton Threshing at the Lister Arms,
Hall), early 1950s Malham, c.1942,
oil on canvas Watercolour on paper

12 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 13







































































Philippa Holmes Constance Pearson
Parkland landscape, (?Bretton Threshing at the Lister Arms,
Hall), early 1950s Malham, c.1942,
oil on canvas Watercolour on paper

14 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 15




12. drawn from the lucid ac- the child and self-expression, with the work being evaluated by the area as intimately or even more intimately than we do, loved it as dearly,
count given by david lewis in pupils themselves. Appointed the inspector of art to the london County saw it of necessity in sunshine and in storm, and only secured a living by
The incomplete circle: Eric At- Council in 1930, richardson continued to run courses for art teachers, pitting themselves and their skill against all its natural disadvantages. 14
kinson, art and education: an
exchange of letters, edited and to profound effect. Avant-garde ideas, both in art and in education, held
introduced by david lewis, a stronger foothold in europe – particularly at the Bauhaus – but the Constance Pearson, who was invited to produce the illustrations for
contributors, eric Atkinson, et Second World War brought a curtain down between Britain and europe, raistrick’s book, might be considered to have been one such ‘off-comer’,
al. (Aldershot, 2000).
13. From notes to an exhibition and it was not until the post-war years of social and economic regeneration but by 1947 she had established herself both in the village community
of New Paintings by Katharine that progressive ideas in art education began to gain a hold, reinforced by at Malham, and as a dales painter of note. Always drawn to the rural
Holmes, held at the linton renewed contact between young British artists and their avant-garde and the pastoral aspects of landscape, she tended to turn her back on
Court Gallery in Settle, April
1998. contemporaries in europe. even then, the situation within the regional industrial or urban development, and sought out undesecrated coun-
art schools in the 1950s can best be summarized as an increasing tryside. When she lived in leeds, she would walk to Adel or Calverley
struggle between progressives and conservatives, the former suggesting Woods, to find her congenial subject; in Cornwall she turned away from
there was no right or wrong way to do art, and that at the heart of art the tin-mining areas to the coast and harbour. in Malham she became Philippa Holmes
education there should be the encouragement of the individual to make a familiar figure, tramping about in all weathers, her hat bound to her The Pantry at High Barn
their own discoveries; the latter insisting that technical ability and skills head with a scarf on windy days. She endured rain and snow traipsing Cottage
12
had to be acquired before communication could achieve validity. The out to Malham Cove or Gordale Scar, or took the (infrequent) bus to oil on board
Pre-diploma Course in Art and design was established nationally in further reaches in Wharfedale or Wensleydale. By being in the landscape, 15. raistrick, op. cit. p.xii.
1961, following the first report of the national Advisory Council on Art and studying its forms, she gained a special intimacy with it. She painted 16. From a letter to his friend
education in 1960 (the First Coldstream report). Afterwards becoming quickly and confidently, able to seize a moment of rapidly changing light Fisher, 1821, quoted in
C.r.leslie, Memoirs of the Life
the Foundation Course, it was aimed at training students in ‘observa- through subdued colour or strong tone, and familiar with the bare bones of John Constable, (london,
tion, analysis, creative work and technical control’ through the study of of the landscape to a degree that enabled her to depict it in all seasons 1843), 1951 edition, p. 86. one
‘line, form, colour and space relationships in two and three dimensions’ and at any time of day. By raistrick’s measure, she thus gained as much is reminded also of the words
ascribed to John ruskin, after
(in effect echoing much of the Basic design teaching innovations of the authority as the native: the key to the ‘beauty and truth’ of the illustra- seeing Turner’s painting of the
1950s), backed up by courses in the history of art and complementary tions, as raistrick concluded, arose from her being ‘entirely in tune and subject, that ‘the valley of the
studies. lasting a year, and usually undertaken at the end of secondary in responsive mood with the country’, which is ‘to become part of it and lune at Kirkby lonsdale is one
of the loveliest scenes in england
education, the ‘Pre-dip’ or Foundation year was also meant to serve as share its secrets’. 15 – therefore in the world.’
a diagnostic filter for students, enabling them to progress into special- equations between truth and beauty have claimed the moral high 14. Arthur raistrick, Malham
ized fields such as painting, sculpture, printmaking or ceramics for their ground for more than two centuries. embedded in the traditions of and Malham Moor (Clapham,
1947), p.xi. The founder of The
principal study. romantic art and literature, they continue to colour our response to Dalesman, harry J.Scott, sug-
universities offering fine art as a degree subject also largely adopted landscape painting, remaining a potent form of rhetoric. By extension, gested the book as a collabo-
this pattern of a broad grounding followed by specialist study. This was the domestic subject came to carry a similar weight, reinforced when ration between raistrick and
Constance Pearson and gave
certainly the case at newcastle, which had embraced the influence of national chauvinism was kindled by england’s war with France – as the £100 for copyright, to be used
a series of progressive teachers, including Victor Pasmore and richard refrain of John Braham’s Song of Nelson (1811) proclaims: ‘england, towards the fund for setting up a
hamilton. it was not a form of teaching that all students found easy – home and beauty’. Such conflations of english genius with authenticity village hall in Malham. The hall,
converted from an old barn,
jumping from a sense of familiar security into the void. As Katharine has extended to many forms of genre, from the english cottage to the eng- was opened jointly in 1965 by
described it: ‘after the foundation year, you latched on to a tutor with lish landscape, celebrated most famously, perhaps, by John Constable author and artist.
whose approach you felt happy. it’s initially hard to choose and pursue when he said ‘still i should paint my own places best; painting is with
a direction, but that’s what it’s like when you’re out on your own’. me but another word for feeling’. They continue to have a resonance
13
16
one of her tutors was norman Adams – born a londoner – who made to this day – perhaps increasingly so as the growth of population,
a home at horton-in-ribblesdale, and painted its landscape for decades. human encroachment and associated accelerating pollution threaten
both the english landscape and regional identity.
in his preface to Malham and Malham Moor, Arthur raistrick com- Philippa holmes was largely compelled by the domestic responsibili-
mented: ties of caring for husband, child and mother to restrict her own paint-
ing’s subject matter to her immediate surroundings: to her baby, and
during these long ages, nearly seven thousand years, many people have her home. landscapes or seascapes were usually painted in the small
lived out their lives here, learned to know and to love the place and to pockets of time she found on holiday with the family. her evocative
call it home, many of whom we today might be tempted to call ‘foreign- depictions of corners of high Barn Cottage, recording the details of its
ers’ or ‘off-comers’ as we say in the dales. These early people knew the pantry or a lamp against a cupboard in the corner of the room, lovingly

14 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 15




12. drawn from the lucid ac- the child and self-expression, with the work being evaluated by the area as intimately or even more intimately than we do, loved it as dearly,
count given by david lewis in pupils themselves. Appointed the inspector of art to the london County saw it of necessity in sunshine and in storm, and only secured a living by
The incomplete circle: Eric At- Council in 1930, richardson continued to run courses for art teachers, pitting themselves and their skill against all its natural disadvantages. 14
kinson, art and education: an
exchange of letters, edited and to profound effect. Avant-garde ideas, both in art and in education, held
introduced by david lewis, a stronger foothold in europe – particularly at the Bauhaus – but the Constance Pearson, who was invited to produce the illustrations for
contributors, eric Atkinson, et Second World War brought a curtain down between Britain and europe, raistrick’s book, might be considered to have been one such ‘off-comer’,
al. (Aldershot, 2000).
13. From notes to an exhibition and it was not until the post-war years of social and economic regeneration but by 1947 she had established herself both in the village community
of New Paintings by Katharine that progressive ideas in art education began to gain a hold, reinforced by at Malham, and as a dales painter of note. Always drawn to the rural
Holmes, held at the linton renewed contact between young British artists and their avant-garde and the pastoral aspects of landscape, she tended to turn her back on
Court Gallery in Settle, April
1998. contemporaries in europe. even then, the situation within the regional industrial or urban development, and sought out undesecrated coun-
art schools in the 1950s can best be summarized as an increasing tryside. When she lived in leeds, she would walk to Adel or Calverley
struggle between progressives and conservatives, the former suggesting Woods, to find her congenial subject; in Cornwall she turned away from
there was no right or wrong way to do art, and that at the heart of art the tin-mining areas to the coast and harbour. in Malham she became Philippa Holmes
education there should be the encouragement of the individual to make a familiar figure, tramping about in all weathers, her hat bound to her The Pantry at High Barn
their own discoveries; the latter insisting that technical ability and skills head with a scarf on windy days. She endured rain and snow traipsing Cottage
12
had to be acquired before communication could achieve validity. The out to Malham Cove or Gordale Scar, or took the (infrequent) bus to oil on board
Pre-diploma Course in Art and design was established nationally in further reaches in Wharfedale or Wensleydale. By being in the landscape, 15. raistrick, op. cit. p.xii.
1961, following the first report of the national Advisory Council on Art and studying its forms, she gained a special intimacy with it. She painted 16. From a letter to his friend
education in 1960 (the First Coldstream report). Afterwards becoming quickly and confidently, able to seize a moment of rapidly changing light Fisher, 1821, quoted in
C.r.leslie, Memoirs of the Life
the Foundation Course, it was aimed at training students in ‘observa- through subdued colour or strong tone, and familiar with the bare bones of John Constable, (london,
tion, analysis, creative work and technical control’ through the study of of the landscape to a degree that enabled her to depict it in all seasons 1843), 1951 edition, p. 86. one
‘line, form, colour and space relationships in two and three dimensions’ and at any time of day. By raistrick’s measure, she thus gained as much is reminded also of the words
ascribed to John ruskin, after
(in effect echoing much of the Basic design teaching innovations of the authority as the native: the key to the ‘beauty and truth’ of the illustra- seeing Turner’s painting of the
1950s), backed up by courses in the history of art and complementary tions, as raistrick concluded, arose from her being ‘entirely in tune and subject, that ‘the valley of the
studies. lasting a year, and usually undertaken at the end of secondary in responsive mood with the country’, which is ‘to become part of it and lune at Kirkby lonsdale is one
of the loveliest scenes in england
education, the ‘Pre-dip’ or Foundation year was also meant to serve as share its secrets’. 15 – therefore in the world.’
a diagnostic filter for students, enabling them to progress into special- equations between truth and beauty have claimed the moral high 14. Arthur raistrick, Malham
ized fields such as painting, sculpture, printmaking or ceramics for their ground for more than two centuries. embedded in the traditions of and Malham Moor (Clapham,
1947), p.xi. The founder of The
principal study. romantic art and literature, they continue to colour our response to Dalesman, harry J.Scott, sug-
universities offering fine art as a degree subject also largely adopted landscape painting, remaining a potent form of rhetoric. By extension, gested the book as a collabo-
this pattern of a broad grounding followed by specialist study. This was the domestic subject came to carry a similar weight, reinforced when ration between raistrick and
Constance Pearson and gave
certainly the case at newcastle, which had embraced the influence of national chauvinism was kindled by england’s war with France – as the £100 for copyright, to be used
a series of progressive teachers, including Victor Pasmore and richard refrain of John Braham’s Song of Nelson (1811) proclaims: ‘england, towards the fund for setting up a
hamilton. it was not a form of teaching that all students found easy – home and beauty’. Such conflations of english genius with authenticity village hall in Malham. The hall,
converted from an old barn,
jumping from a sense of familiar security into the void. As Katharine has extended to many forms of genre, from the english cottage to the eng- was opened jointly in 1965 by
described it: ‘after the foundation year, you latched on to a tutor with lish landscape, celebrated most famously, perhaps, by John Constable author and artist.
whose approach you felt happy. it’s initially hard to choose and pursue when he said ‘still i should paint my own places best; painting is with
a direction, but that’s what it’s like when you’re out on your own’. me but another word for feeling’. They continue to have a resonance
13
16
one of her tutors was norman Adams – born a londoner – who made to this day – perhaps increasingly so as the growth of population,
a home at horton-in-ribblesdale, and painted its landscape for decades. human encroachment and associated accelerating pollution threaten
both the english landscape and regional identity.
in his preface to Malham and Malham Moor, Arthur raistrick com- Philippa holmes was largely compelled by the domestic responsibili-
mented: ties of caring for husband, child and mother to restrict her own paint-
ing’s subject matter to her immediate surroundings: to her baby, and
during these long ages, nearly seven thousand years, many people have her home. landscapes or seascapes were usually painted in the small
lived out their lives here, learned to know and to love the place and to pockets of time she found on holiday with the family. her evocative
call it home, many of whom we today might be tempted to call ‘foreign- depictions of corners of high Barn Cottage, recording the details of its
ers’ or ‘off-comers’ as we say in the dales. These early people knew the pantry or a lamp against a cupboard in the corner of the room, lovingly

16 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 17




record the place that she made her own, and to which she devoted all opposite: Constance Pearson
her skills in homemaking. Glimpses of quiet domestic life have, from Spring Lambs
Watercolour on paper
the genre painting of the 17th century onwards, continued to exert
their appeal, and perhaps gain a greater potency today for many who
recognize and mourn the fact that such experiences have slipped away
forever. Similarly, we can look today at Constance Pearson’s images of
Malham, and recognize features of its life that were commonplace at
the time of her painting them – almost incidentally caught in her gaze:
the man crossing a bridge with a back can, the threshing machine set up
near the lister Arms and the mutual co-operation of farmers in bringing
the crops to the site; the sheep fairs, and the autumn livestock sales.
The disappearance of such farming traditions in the yorkshire dales
became a focus of study for Marie hartley, whose illustrations for the
many books produced with ella Pontefract and Joan ingilby are now
held in the university of leeds Art Collection. it would be fair to say
that Marie hartley’s illustrations of the dales take a more analytical and
objective view, compared to Constance Pearson’s more emotive work,
but they both hold to an honest truth, and become all the more precious
as the individual identity of these times and places becomes lost.
Whilst they were serious and committed painters, Constance Pearson
and Philippa holmes were both married and enjoyed the security of a
husband’s income, however meagre it might have been at times. in that
sense they were free to choose their own way in art. For Constance, it
was the loving evocation of the spirit of the place – the people of the
dales in all their ways, and the landscape in all its changing moods.
For Philippa, it rested largely with the comfortable domesticity of the
place, and the associations of place and family. The difficulty confronting
the professional artist who depends upon picture sales as the sole source
of income has always been the danger of repetition and mannerism.
Katharine is acutely aware of this, and while she is pragmatic in her
recognition that part of her work has to be providing what an audience
wants, she also feels the strong creative impulse that urges her to step
outside the safe boundaries of such work. She has turned to the wilder
and more savage aspects of the place, where the evidence of human presence
remains nevertheless, exploiting its potential as a vehicle for both an
expressive and more abstract form of art.
Three generations of Malham painters: each with a different way
of seeing, but each also marked by an absorption in a particular place,
and in their appeal to our own romantic impulse they share with us a
common language that we can still enjoy today.

16 A MAlhAM FAMily oF PAinTerS hilAry diAPer 17




record the place that she made her own, and to which she devoted all opposite: Constance Pearson
her skills in homemaking. Glimpses of quiet domestic life have, from Spring Lambs
Watercolour on paper
the genre painting of the 17th century onwards, continued to exert
their appeal, and perhaps gain a greater potency today for many who
recognize and mourn the fact that such experiences have slipped away
forever. Similarly, we can look today at Constance Pearson’s images of
Malham, and recognize features of its life that were commonplace at
the time of her painting them – almost incidentally caught in her gaze:
the man crossing a bridge with a back can, the threshing machine set up
near the lister Arms and the mutual co-operation of farmers in bringing
the crops to the site; the sheep fairs, and the autumn livestock sales.
The disappearance of such farming traditions in the yorkshire dales
became a focus of study for Marie hartley, whose illustrations for the
many books produced with ella Pontefract and Joan ingilby are now
held in the university of leeds Art Collection. it would be fair to say
that Marie hartley’s illustrations of the dales take a more analytical and
objective view, compared to Constance Pearson’s more emotive work,
but they both hold to an honest truth, and become all the more precious
as the individual identity of these times and places becomes lost.
Whilst they were serious and committed painters, Constance Pearson
and Philippa holmes were both married and enjoyed the security of a
husband’s income, however meagre it might have been at times. in that
sense they were free to choose their own way in art. For Constance, it
was the loving evocation of the spirit of the place – the people of the
dales in all their ways, and the landscape in all its changing moods.
For Philippa, it rested largely with the comfortable domesticity of the
place, and the associations of place and family. The difficulty confronting
the professional artist who depends upon picture sales as the sole source
of income has always been the danger of repetition and mannerism.
Katharine is acutely aware of this, and while she is pragmatic in her
recognition that part of her work has to be providing what an audience
wants, she also feels the strong creative impulse that urges her to step
outside the safe boundaries of such work. She has turned to the wilder
and more savage aspects of the place, where the evidence of human presence
remains nevertheless, exploiting its potential as a vehicle for both an
expressive and more abstract form of art.
Three generations of Malham painters: each with a different way
of seeing, but each also marked by an absorption in a particular place,
and in their appeal to our own romantic impulse they share with us a
common language that we can still enjoy today.

18 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 19




Katharine holmes:
The Poetry of landscape

lynne Green




The sun shines not on us, but in us.
The rivers flow not past, but through us…

– John Muir (1838-1914)

i have a long-standing romantic image in my head of the lakeland poets
Katharine holmes working, – William Wordsworth and the others – striding across the landscape,
Malham (May 2009) whatever the weather, in order to experience its every nuance and its
many moods. More recently i have come to recognise in the painter
Katharine holmes a parallel engagement, motivated by a poetic sensibility
as well as an acute sensitivity to both landscape and the natural forces
that shape it. Setting out from her home village of Malham, this contem-
porary painter-poet explores the dramatic landscape of the yorkshire
dales in order to embody in paint her visual, emotional and spiritual
responses to it. This is a distinctive landscape of open moorland, softly
rounded valleys, steep crags and hills. There is an underlying toughness
to the dales – formed as they were by glacial erosion and shaped by the
wind and the rain – that is echoed in the independence and self-reliance
of its people. The spectacular natural architecture of this extraordinary
area – the limestone formations of scars, caves, ‘pavements’ (expanses
of fissured rock), waterfalls and tarns – dwarf the artist as she ventures
into it day after day, throughout every season of the year. rucksack on
her back, working in all weathers, she records in numerous plein-air
drawings the immediacy of her experience. her sketchbooks are alive
with energy and colour; with the quickness of hand capturing the rise
and fall of landform, the movement of grasses or water whipped by the
wind; with the trajectory of clouds tearing across the sky. recorded too
is the drama of rapid changes in weather fronts, and the severe condi-
tions that can result: the effects of rain, sleet, wind, mist and sun leave
traces on the pages. in my mind’s eye she perches on a rock, leans into
the howling wind, shelters in the back of her little van (rear door open)
as horizontal rain scours hill and dale, or she bakes in the blistering sun
when deep shadows articulate sheer cliffs of limestone rock.
Consistently working out of doors gives holmes a deep connec-
tion with the landscape she paints; her knowledge of it is both physical
and imaginative. immersed in her subject, her relationship with it is
close and personal. hers is a process of translating her impressions and
sensations into line, colour, form, and pictorial space. What she creates
are not polite renderings of the pretty, the charming or the anecdotal. Katharine Holmes
rather, she presents the awe-inspiring reality of a landscape subject Living in a limestone landscape, 2009
oil and grasses and collage
to every climatic, elemental extreme. The work that results is as much on canvas

18 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 19




Katharine holmes:
The Poetry of landscape

lynne Green




The sun shines not on us, but in us.
The rivers flow not past, but through us…

– John Muir (1838-1914)

i have a long-standing romantic image in my head of the lakeland poets
Katharine holmes working, – William Wordsworth and the others – striding across the landscape,
Malham (May 2009) whatever the weather, in order to experience its every nuance and its
many moods. More recently i have come to recognise in the painter
Katharine holmes a parallel engagement, motivated by a poetic sensibility
as well as an acute sensitivity to both landscape and the natural forces
that shape it. Setting out from her home village of Malham, this contem-
porary painter-poet explores the dramatic landscape of the yorkshire
dales in order to embody in paint her visual, emotional and spiritual
responses to it. This is a distinctive landscape of open moorland, softly
rounded valleys, steep crags and hills. There is an underlying toughness
to the dales – formed as they were by glacial erosion and shaped by the
wind and the rain – that is echoed in the independence and self-reliance
of its people. The spectacular natural architecture of this extraordinary
area – the limestone formations of scars, caves, ‘pavements’ (expanses
of fissured rock), waterfalls and tarns – dwarf the artist as she ventures
into it day after day, throughout every season of the year. rucksack on
her back, working in all weathers, she records in numerous plein-air
drawings the immediacy of her experience. her sketchbooks are alive
with energy and colour; with the quickness of hand capturing the rise
and fall of landform, the movement of grasses or water whipped by the
wind; with the trajectory of clouds tearing across the sky. recorded too
is the drama of rapid changes in weather fronts, and the severe condi-
tions that can result: the effects of rain, sleet, wind, mist and sun leave
traces on the pages. in my mind’s eye she perches on a rock, leans into
the howling wind, shelters in the back of her little van (rear door open)
as horizontal rain scours hill and dale, or she bakes in the blistering sun
when deep shadows articulate sheer cliffs of limestone rock.
Consistently working out of doors gives holmes a deep connec-
tion with the landscape she paints; her knowledge of it is both physical
and imaginative. immersed in her subject, her relationship with it is
close and personal. hers is a process of translating her impressions and
sensations into line, colour, form, and pictorial space. What she creates
are not polite renderings of the pretty, the charming or the anecdotal. Katharine Holmes
rather, she presents the awe-inspiring reality of a landscape subject Living in a limestone landscape, 2009
oil and grasses and collage
to every climatic, elemental extreme. The work that results is as much on canvas

20 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 21




about the material conditions in which the artist works, as it is about high Barn Cottage, Malham
the landscape itself. her work provides us with a painterly equivalent of (May 2009)
the experience of the solitary artist in the presence of what Wordsworth
would have understood as the sublime. holmes is intent on express-
ing, through her encounter with a particular landscape, nature in all its
grandeur, power and transcendental significance. in this she echoes the
nineteenth-century poets and painters who explored nature as both en-
vironment and life-force. in the tradition of Turner, she is enthralled by
the effects of light: the way it dissolves as well as reveals form, the way
it emanates through mist; and also by that most intangible but acutely
real sensation, atmosphere. responding to the quality of specific place,
her palette comes from the season, the weather and her own mood: she
talks, for example, of the ‘blue tones of winter, of the heavy, weighed-
Malhamdale drawings by down feeling, when the mist does not lift’.
Katharine Holmes at High Barn
Cottage, 2009 returning to the studio – often with found objects (tall grasses, possibly
gravel) gleaned along the way and characteristic of specific place or par-
ticular day – she develops series of paintings through a negotiation between
memory and process. Working in a range of media, from indian ink,
gouache and watercolour on paper, to acrylic or oil on canvas, a very real
connection with her initial experience is made through the activity of mark relatively recent development in the presentation of her work was first
making. Perhaps the grasses et cetera act as a sensual, tactile aide-mémoire. inspired by a serendipitous encounter in a friend’s house, where holmes
As in the paintings of her artist-hero Joan eardley, a sense of immediacy, saw a number of drawings just pinned onto a staircase wall. The direct
of direct connection with the landscape is heightened (for both artist and simplicity – where the images are not distanced from the viewer by
viewer) by the inclusion of elements from it, collaged within the paint. frame or glass – appealed to her as being sympathetic to the spirit of her
While found materials provide both texture and a sense of depth, holmes own drawings, and to the circumstances in which they are created.
primarily employs grasses as line: natural objects employed in the delinea- This development is not simply a way of displaying her work – it has
tion of painted form. The fabric, the materiality of her work and its surface led to a shift in the concept of the larger paintings too – to a new energy
qualities, are clearly a source of both pleasure and inspiration for holmes. and spontaneity of mark-making closer to the freedom she had hitherto
hard-worked, distorted, eroded and distressed surfaces – most obvious in allowed herself only when sketching. increasingly, the dynamic and emo-
works on paper – evidence the artist’s intensity of working and the layer- tion of the work holmes does in the landscape is being maintained in the
ing of activity and paint, which slowly build the image. The consequent paintings that follow. The six square paintings shown here are, she says,
physicality of the finished work functions as an equivalent to the landscape, ‘a stage on’ from the small square drawings. Taking the ideas to ‘another
as well as a metaphor for the forces that shape it. in some cases, apparently level’ and into another medium (with its own qualities and capacities),
torn or stretched, ‘ragged’ edges increase this sense of physicality, of the they remain however ‘simple, like the drawings’ – by which i take her to
painting as object, and therefore of there being a continuum between expe- mean that they retain the same quality of directness, the same character-
rienced and painted reality. istic freshness and vigour. on the other hand, the three large canvases in
At the heart of her work in this exhibition lies a substantial sequence the exhibition represent what holmes describes as ‘a more considered,
of small, unframed and regularly-sized drawings installed like a patch- slower process of arriving at the finished image’. Knowing when to stop
work quilt across the gallery wall. More than the sum of its parts is, she admits, always a crucial point in this process. Considered, and in
(although each drawing also stands alone), a patchwork it is, of sensual that sense meditative, as these paintings are, there is nonetheless a new
impressions, observations, meditations and notations, emotional and level of freedom and inventiveness in her working method, reflected
aesthetic responses to place, to quality of light and mood: of the land, for example in the spatter and runs of paint: achieved in the case of the
the weather and the artist. For holmes drawing is a process of thinking latter by tilting the canvas and manipulating the liquidity of the paint.
about and of exploring anew, the landscape she has known all her life. Working from her sketches and on several of these substantial canvases
displayed in this way these drawings create a rich, deep narrative of the at any one time, holmes elaborates, defines, clarifies and intensifies her
artist’s translation of her multi-faceted experience. From our point of original encounter with the landscape. While the finished paintings have
view, this kaleidoscopic sequence allows us to get as close as is possible something of the rawness of the landscape itself, they manage too to en-
to the intensity of her immediate response to the world around her. This compass both its grandeur and the intimate, poetic nuance of its detail.

20 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 21




about the material conditions in which the artist works, as it is about high Barn Cottage, Malham
the landscape itself. her work provides us with a painterly equivalent of (May 2009)
the experience of the solitary artist in the presence of what Wordsworth
would have understood as the sublime. holmes is intent on express-
ing, through her encounter with a particular landscape, nature in all its
grandeur, power and transcendental significance. in this she echoes the
nineteenth-century poets and painters who explored nature as both en-
vironment and life-force. in the tradition of Turner, she is enthralled by
the effects of light: the way it dissolves as well as reveals form, the way
it emanates through mist; and also by that most intangible but acutely
real sensation, atmosphere. responding to the quality of specific place,
her palette comes from the season, the weather and her own mood: she
talks, for example, of the ‘blue tones of winter, of the heavy, weighed-
Malhamdale drawings by down feeling, when the mist does not lift’.
Katharine Holmes at High Barn
Cottage, 2009 returning to the studio – often with found objects (tall grasses, possibly
gravel) gleaned along the way and characteristic of specific place or par-
ticular day – she develops series of paintings through a negotiation between
memory and process. Working in a range of media, from indian ink,
gouache and watercolour on paper, to acrylic or oil on canvas, a very real
connection with her initial experience is made through the activity of mark relatively recent development in the presentation of her work was first
making. Perhaps the grasses et cetera act as a sensual, tactile aide-mémoire. inspired by a serendipitous encounter in a friend’s house, where holmes
As in the paintings of her artist-hero Joan eardley, a sense of immediacy, saw a number of drawings just pinned onto a staircase wall. The direct
of direct connection with the landscape is heightened (for both artist and simplicity – where the images are not distanced from the viewer by
viewer) by the inclusion of elements from it, collaged within the paint. frame or glass – appealed to her as being sympathetic to the spirit of her
While found materials provide both texture and a sense of depth, holmes own drawings, and to the circumstances in which they are created.
primarily employs grasses as line: natural objects employed in the delinea- This development is not simply a way of displaying her work – it has
tion of painted form. The fabric, the materiality of her work and its surface led to a shift in the concept of the larger paintings too – to a new energy
qualities, are clearly a source of both pleasure and inspiration for holmes. and spontaneity of mark-making closer to the freedom she had hitherto
hard-worked, distorted, eroded and distressed surfaces – most obvious in allowed herself only when sketching. increasingly, the dynamic and emo-
works on paper – evidence the artist’s intensity of working and the layer- tion of the work holmes does in the landscape is being maintained in the
ing of activity and paint, which slowly build the image. The consequent paintings that follow. The six square paintings shown here are, she says,
physicality of the finished work functions as an equivalent to the landscape, ‘a stage on’ from the small square drawings. Taking the ideas to ‘another
as well as a metaphor for the forces that shape it. in some cases, apparently level’ and into another medium (with its own qualities and capacities),
torn or stretched, ‘ragged’ edges increase this sense of physicality, of the they remain however ‘simple, like the drawings’ – by which i take her to
painting as object, and therefore of there being a continuum between expe- mean that they retain the same quality of directness, the same character-
rienced and painted reality. istic freshness and vigour. on the other hand, the three large canvases in
At the heart of her work in this exhibition lies a substantial sequence the exhibition represent what holmes describes as ‘a more considered,
of small, unframed and regularly-sized drawings installed like a patch- slower process of arriving at the finished image’. Knowing when to stop
work quilt across the gallery wall. More than the sum of its parts is, she admits, always a crucial point in this process. Considered, and in
(although each drawing also stands alone), a patchwork it is, of sensual that sense meditative, as these paintings are, there is nonetheless a new
impressions, observations, meditations and notations, emotional and level of freedom and inventiveness in her working method, reflected
aesthetic responses to place, to quality of light and mood: of the land, for example in the spatter and runs of paint: achieved in the case of the
the weather and the artist. For holmes drawing is a process of thinking latter by tilting the canvas and manipulating the liquidity of the paint.
about and of exploring anew, the landscape she has known all her life. Working from her sketches and on several of these substantial canvases
displayed in this way these drawings create a rich, deep narrative of the at any one time, holmes elaborates, defines, clarifies and intensifies her
artist’s translation of her multi-faceted experience. From our point of original encounter with the landscape. While the finished paintings have
view, this kaleidoscopic sequence allows us to get as close as is possible something of the rawness of the landscape itself, they manage too to en-
to the intensity of her immediate response to the world around her. This compass both its grandeur and the intimate, poetic nuance of its detail.

22 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 23






































































Katharine Holmes Katharine Holmes
Going to see the lambs and In the depths of winter at
knowing that spring is here, the place where the globe
2009 flowers grow, 2009
oil and grasses on canvas oil and grasses on canvas

22 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 23






































































Katharine Holmes Katharine Holmes
Going to see the lambs and In the depths of winter at
knowing that spring is here, the place where the globe
2009 flowers grow, 2009
oil and grasses on canvas oil and grasses on canvas

24 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 25




Katharine holmes creates an art in which we feel as much as see the
evidence of her relationship with the dales. She is fascinated by what she
describes as ‘very ordinary corners’ and cites as an example the lanes (the
ways) in and out of Malham, that embody the comings and goings of its
inhabitants through the millennia. For the artist they are symbolic also of
her own leaving and returning, of ‘half-leaving’ and then coming back more
recently to her family home. lines in the landscape fascinate her, so many of
them expressive of human presence and activity: the tracks, lanes, by-ways,
roads, train lines and walls that criss-cross both hill and dale. Paths through
the landscape mark it, animate, explore and connect it: the 270 mile long
Pennine Way passes through Malham village. Walking is a process of
discovery, of mapping, of acquiring knowledge and understanding of place
– and crucially of one’s relationship to that place. Many of holmes’ earliest
memories are connected with walks, in the company of family or friends.
Some are linked to stories, or have particular associations: at the end of the
school day in the Spring, she might go on a ‘lamb walk’ in the company
of her mother. Another favourite family walk passed a copse where Globe
Flowers (Trollius Europaeu) grew.
The artist’s home landscape, its specific characteristics and history
are woven not only into her memory, but also into who she is. While
she ventures into other landscapes, visits other countries (for she has
travelled widely), this is the place, the land, Katharine holmes knows
best. her knowledge of it is deep and long. She has been walking it since
she was a child, and having left it for a time, has returned to live at the
heart of it, in the house where her grandparents and her parents lived
before her. As this exhibition reveals, holmes is the third generation of
women in her family to express her sense of the dales in paint. This con-
tinuity of a family tradition provides an important underpinning to her
own work, for from it comes a profound sense of belonging – not only
to a community but also to a unique heritage. during the last decade
the experience of very different landscapes and cultural traditions quite
distinct from her own – in particular perhaps those of Japan and Africa
– has enriched her painter’s vocabulary, her approach to colour, texture
and form. But she always returns to the dales with a renewed apprecia-
tion for the landscape to which she belongs. in some drawings done for
this exhibition, holmes captures ‘her own lane’ as it appears both from
her studio window and as she approaches home. As a subject it is both
poignant and symbolic, for this is the beginning and the end of all her
journeying, into the landscape and beyond.








Katharine Holmes
A backendish day and the mist
hangs heavy over the tops, 2009
oil and grasses on canvas

24 KAThArine holMeS: The PoeTry oF lAndSCAPe lynne Green 25




Katharine holmes creates an art in which we feel as much as see the
evidence of her relationship with the dales. She is fascinated by what she
describes as ‘very ordinary corners’ and cites as an example the lanes (the
ways) in and out of Malham, that embody the comings and goings of its
inhabitants through the millennia. For the artist they are symbolic also of
her own leaving and returning, of ‘half-leaving’ and then coming back more
recently to her family home. lines in the landscape fascinate her, so many of
them expressive of human presence and activity: the tracks, lanes, by-ways,
roads, train lines and walls that criss-cross both hill and dale. Paths through
the landscape mark it, animate, explore and connect it: the 270 mile long
Pennine Way passes through Malham village. Walking is a process of
discovery, of mapping, of acquiring knowledge and understanding of place
– and crucially of one’s relationship to that place. Many of holmes’ earliest
memories are connected with walks, in the company of family or friends.
Some are linked to stories, or have particular associations: at the end of the
school day in the Spring, she might go on a ‘lamb walk’ in the company
of her mother. Another favourite family walk passed a copse where Globe
Flowers (Trollius Europaeu) grew.
The artist’s home landscape, its specific characteristics and history
are woven not only into her memory, but also into who she is. While
she ventures into other landscapes, visits other countries (for she has
travelled widely), this is the place, the land, Katharine holmes knows
best. her knowledge of it is deep and long. She has been walking it since
she was a child, and having left it for a time, has returned to live at the
heart of it, in the house where her grandparents and her parents lived
before her. As this exhibition reveals, holmes is the third generation of
women in her family to express her sense of the dales in paint. This con-
tinuity of a family tradition provides an important underpinning to her
own work, for from it comes a profound sense of belonging – not only
to a community but also to a unique heritage. during the last decade
the experience of very different landscapes and cultural traditions quite
distinct from her own – in particular perhaps those of Japan and Africa
– has enriched her painter’s vocabulary, her approach to colour, texture
and form. But she always returns to the dales with a renewed apprecia-
tion for the landscape to which she belongs. in some drawings done for
this exhibition, holmes captures ‘her own lane’ as it appears both from
her studio window and as she approaches home. As a subject it is both
poignant and symbolic, for this is the beginning and the end of all her
journeying, into the landscape and beyond.








Katharine Holmes
A backendish day and the mist
hangs heavy over the tops, 2009
oil and grasses on canvas

hilAry diAPer 5




Acknowledgements









Tony rae, Joe Gilmore, Jerry hardman-Jones,
Joanne lewis, Jess Thomas, Sophie Clarke,
roberta hickey, hollie Kritikos-Blades,
Misty ericson, Sean Curran, liz Stainforth,
Jessica Viner, layla Bloom, laura robinson
and Paul Whittle

With very special thanks to Katharine holmes


Copyright


All artwork by Katharine holmes © Katharine
holmes, by Constance Pearson and Philippa
holmes © the estate of the Artists, unless
otherwise stated.


Photography


Jerry hardman-Jones

hilAry diAPer 5




Acknowledgements









Tony rae, Joe Gilmore, Jerry hardman-Jones,
Joanne lewis, Jess Thomas, Sophie Clarke,
roberta hickey, hollie Kritikos-Blades,
Misty ericson, Sean Curran, liz Stainforth,
Jessica Viner, layla Bloom, laura robinson
and Paul Whittle

With very special thanks to Katharine holmes


Copyright


All artwork by Katharine holmes © Katharine
holmes, by Constance Pearson and Philippa
holmes © the estate of the Artists, unless
otherwise stated.


Photography


Jerry hardman-Jones

The Stanley & Audrey

Burton Gallery

university of leeds

Parkinson Building

Woodhouse lane

leeds lS2 9JT


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