7107 - Holmead

Holmead Autumn Landscape Oil on wood. 1974. 92 x 76 cm. Signed "Holmead" in light brown with a brush in the lower right corner; signed again on the reverse with a black felt-tip pen, dated, and marked "HPinx" and "ciré." Holmead lived in Brussels from 1956 onward, where he remained active until his death. In his late work, he developed an increasingly expressive visual language characterized by impasto and the dynamic use of the palette knife. His landscapes thus moved further and further away from realistic representation and toward abstraction. In our “Autumn Landscape,” created in 1974, Holmead condenses the groups of trees with broad, powerful palette knife strokes into a dynamic composition. Vibrant shades of yellow and ochre contrast with the cool blue of the sky and the dark earth tones of the foreground. The relief-like application of paint lends the landscape a distinctive three-dimensional quality and expressive dynamism. In the year our painting was created, just a few months before his death, the Galerie Albert 1er in Brussels dedicated its final solo exhibition to him; however, we do not know whether our painting was shown there. Provenance: Private collection, Belgium - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is usually not listed in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.