Edgar Holloway (1914-2008)

Painter and etcher, born in Mexborough near Doncaster, Yorkshire, the son of a frame maker. Holloway intended going to art school but was already selling his work through his father's framing shop at the age of fourteen. He felt little need for instruction and reluctantly attended part-time evening classes at his local art school. He said that he learnt his skill at etching from books, especially Ernest Lumsden's 'The Art of Etching'. In 1931 he held his first solo exhibition and attended life classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, met Alec Buckels and through him, Herbert Read, Stephen Spender and T.S. Eliot, whose portraits Holloway drew and etched. In 1943 Holloway visited Eric Gill at Capel-y-ffin and met and soon after married Daisy Monica Hawkins Gill's favourite model. Edgar Holloway settled in Ditchling, Sussex, in 1949 and became a member of the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in which Gill was involved. By now Holloway h