Sir Charles John Holmes

Born in Preston, Lancashire, Holmes led a distinguished career as a writer, art historian and administrator, painter and etcher. Educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, he was introduced to Old Master drawings by his uncle, Sir Richard Holmes, who was Librarian at Windsor.

After a period working in the office of the London publishers, Rivington & Co. (1889), he managed the Vale Press for Ricketts and Shannon from 1895 to 1903. He was editor of the newly founded Burlington Magazine between 1903 and 1909 and Slade Professor at Oxford from 1904 to 1910. The lectures he delivered there were published as Notes on the Science of Picture-Making, and Notes on the Art of Rembrandt. Holmes was appointed Director of the National Portrait Gallery in 1909, where he stayed until his appointment as Director of the National Gallery in 1916. He retired from this post in 1928. He was knighted in 1921 and made K.C.V.O. in 1928. His autobiography, Self and Partners, was published in 1936.

Holmes studied etching under William Strang, and was self-taught in drawing. His subjects were principally the landscape and industrial scenery of the north of England. He began exhibiting at the New English Art Club in 1900, and became a member in 1905. His first one-man exhibition was held at the Carfax Gallery in 1909. He was made an associate member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1924 and a full member c.1928. His memorial exhibition was held at the Fine Art Society in 1937.