Juliet Holland Mixed Media Painting "Forzivia #16," 1989

Item Details

Juliet Holland (New York, 1937 – 2017)
Forzivia #16,1989
Mixed media painting including acrylic and texturing medium on paper
Signed to lower right
Attributes inscribed to verso

American mixed media artist Juliet Holland was born in Buffalo, New York, and grew up in the upper-class life of 1940s Massachusetts. At a time of highly regulated social expectations, Holland continued on the path that was prescribed for her when her mother passed away. She married a Harvard alumni banker, had children, and lived as wife, mother, and lady of the house. It wasn’t until Holland experienced depression that she made a break from that life and chose to pursue the arts. She attended New York University, Harvard University, and the New England School of Art, experimenting with a variety of media including painting, ceramics, and leathercraft. Holland spent the next few decades as an artist splitting her time between New York City and Connecticut. She countered the lively and gritty nature of the city with the serene and regenerative constitution of the coast.

Holland’s art encapsulates how these opposing natures can coexist. Surfaces were layered with sand, clay, and metallics only to be scraped, and reduced to deformation. To Holland, the constant permeation of new forms was an ultimate truth of nature. She was inspired by the natural effects of time, and the evolutionary cycle of augmentation and depletion. Just like her art, Holland faced the daily effects of time when she was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia and Parkison’s.

After her first exhibition in 1981, Holland showed her work continuously across New York and New England as well as Japan. She was the co-founder of an artist exchange program between the United States and Japan called Art Bridge, and served as a board member of Lamia Ink!. Juliet Holland’s work was published in the likes of the New York Times and New York Arts Journal. Her art is held in permanent collections including the Housatonic Museum of Art, Connecticut, and the San Antonio Museum of Modern Art, Texas, as well as international private collections.

Condition

creasing at corners; some loose edges to collage; scattered small spots of paint loss

Dimensions

Item #

ITMGJ12826