Tom Holland (American, b. 1936)
Hopps
fiberglass and aluminum with epoxy paint
Mixed Media Wall Sculpture
1982, hand signed and dated
Dimensions: 65.5 X 78 X 10 inches
Tom Holland (born 1936 in Seattle, Washington, United States) is an American visual artist. Holland is known for creating a style of art that may use fiberglass (or fibreglass), aluminum (or aluminium), epoxy paint, plywood, beads, oil paint, palette knives, marble, copper, paper, and clay. For clay he uses watercolor, acrylic urethane, and ceramic glazes.
Holland began his formal art education at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was influenced by David Park who was a member of the art faculty. Other artists, among them Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff, working at this time in Berkeley, contributed to the development of Holland's artistic and personal style as a young student. His work with grommets and 3D dimensionality pre dates Frank Stella, He has exhibited at the San Francisco Museum with Mel Ramos Tony Delap, Roy De Forest, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, Wayne Thiebaud, and William Wiley.
Following his time at Cal, he travelled to Santiago, Chile, as a Fulbright Grant recipient.
His beginning as a painter was labeled "funky". It wasn't until Holland began to work with aluminum that he achieved critical acclaim. His work has been described as taking inspiration from Abstract Expressionist art, Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism, and he has been called one of California's most important contemporary artists and was featured in Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–1980: An Illustrated History.
Holland works primarily with fiberglass and aluminum to create free-standing and wall installations, a style that has been said to encompass Abstract Expressionism. He creates his art by riveting metal to the fiberglass or aluminum, then using epoxy paint to add other elements to the piece which add depth, light, and color. His work has been labeled exhilarating and visually challenging, playing games and distorting the three-dimensional space. His work has been described as taking inspiration from Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism, and he has been called one of California's most important contemporary artists and was featured in Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–1980: An Illustrated History. His work has been labeled exhilarating and visually challenging, playing games and distorting the three dimensional space.
In addition to developing his own work, Holland has also served as a faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. He retired from teaching in order to paint full time in his downtown Berkeley studio. Beyond his larger sculptural pieces, Holland occasionally cuts and bends paper, fiberglass or aluminum to make small figures such as heads or animals which are playful exercises with color, form and materials. He contracts with a potter to make ceramic plates which he paints using images inspired by the landscape and has done a series of paintings often etching on thin copper sheets. His work was chosen by John Elderfield of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for a show of work on paper which encouraged Holland to continue exercising this creative form. He also makes lithographs and has made prints with Cirrus Editions, Nuristani Prints and Crown Point Press. He works on marble, copper, paper, and clay and uses watercolor, acrylic urethane and ceramic glazes.
Holland is currently represented by galleries in Dallas, Santa Fe and San Francisco and his prints are with Crown Point Press in San Francisco and Cirrus Editions in Los Angeles.
Awards
1959 : Fulbright Fellowship
1975–1976 : National Endowment for the Arts Sculpture Grant
1980 : Guggenheim Fellowship
Solo exhibitions
1966 : Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles
1970 : Neuendorf Gallery, Hamburg
1972 : Felicity Samuel Gallery, London
1972 : San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
1980 : James Corcoran Gallery – Santa Monica
1982 : Corcoran Gallery
1983 : Bank of America Galleries, Santa Monica
1989 : Persons and Lindell Gallery, Helsinki
1994 : San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
1995 : Triton Museum, Silicon Valley
2002 : John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco
2017 : Bivins Gallery
Group exhibitions
1973 : Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1965 : University of Texas, University Art Museum, Austin
1969 : Corcoran Gallery
1970 : Museum of Modern Art, New York
1977 : Watson/de Nagy & Company
1981 : Museum of Modern Art, New York
1984 : San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
1996 : Los Angeles County Museum, of Art, Los Angeles
2004 : The National Academy, New York
2005 : Tucson Museum of Art
2017 : Bivins Gallery, Dallas
Notable collections
Anderson Collection
Berkeley Art Museum
Brooklyn Museum
Charles Schwab Company
Chicago Art Institute
Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art
Denver Art Museum
Di Rosa Collections
Duker Collection
Federal Reserve Bank, San Francisco
Los Angeles County Museum* Mayfield Fund
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Oakland Museum of California
The Official Residence of the United States Ambassador to Switzerland
Palm Springs Desert Museum
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art Collection
Seattle Art Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art