OBITUARY. The Times August 1st 188.

We deeply regret to announce the sudden death of Mr Frank Holl, RA., which took place yesterday morning at his home in Fitzjohn's-avenue at the early age of 43. Mr Holl had been ailing for some weeks, but it was hoped that with care he would be able to pass through the crisis which had been brought on by over-exertion. This, however, proved unfortunately to be vain hope, and the attack of yesterday was rapidly fatal It is undoubtedly the case of the very hard work of getting his pictures ready for the exhibitions at the end of last April developed his delicacy of heart to a dangerous extent He was, however, unconscious of this, although he had known that any very great exertion would be perilous. When the pictures had been sent in he paid a hasty visit to Spain by way of taking a holiday; for, he said 'I am tired and feel as if I have been getting into a groove; a few days with Velasquez will give me just the stimulus I want.' He went to Madrid and was back again in less than a fortnight, and this strain of his long and rapid journey proved too much for him. He had a seizure soon after his return and Sir William Jenner forbade him to undertake more than one sitter a day. This moderate amount of work seemed not too great for his strength, but a fortnight ago, while staying with a friend he had a second seizure and since that time his doctors Dr Broadbent and Mr William Adams-regarded his case as anxious, though they by no means despaired of curing him. But yesterday morning at half-past 8 he was again seized with cardiac disease, and in a moment was dead.

Frank Holl was the son of the late eminent engraver Francis Holl ARA., and was born on July 4 1845, at St James's terrace, Kentish-town. As a boy he went to University College School, but his inherited love for art soon asserted itself, and at 15 he was entered as a probationer in the Royal Academy Schools. There he soon made his mark, obtaining a silver medal in 1862, and a gold medal and a scholarship the following year. In 1864 he began to exhibit, and from that time contributed regularly to exhibitions. In 1868 he obtained the Two Years' Traveling Studentship, and a little later he may be said to have decided upon the style of subject and treatment by which, for the next ten year he was almost exclusively known. 

He devoted himself to subject pictures, generally of a pathetic and melancholy cast, such as are indicated by the titles "No Tidings from the Sea" (1871), "Leaving Home" (1873) , "Deserted "(1874), "Want," and "The Emigrant's Departure." Pictures of this kind, treated with undeniable power and vigour, gained him his Associateship in 1878; but if he had not in a happy moment ventured into a different field of art, he would not have taken a front rank among English painters. 

Nine or ten years ago, however, he determined to paint the portrait of his neighbour, the veteran engraver Samuel Cousins. The impression which the portrait made is still fresh in the recollection of many; good judges were at once arrested by the strength of handling, the grasp of character, and the Rembrandt-like power over light and shade which were so apparent in it. Strange to say the one person who disliked it was Mr Cousins himself, who, with a curious vanity from which old men frequently suffer, declared that the painter had added to his years, and had made him appear too old. So seriously did the octogenarian engraver regard the matter that it was long before he forgave Mr Holl, little suspecting that the painter, to use a phrase of Mr Gladstone's, had "immeasurably increased his chances of immortality." 

What the public thought of the picture was very soon apparent, for Mr Holl was at once overwhelmed with commissions, so that from that day to the day of his death he may be said to have scarcely had a single day, except during his annual holiday, free from sitters. A list of them would include a very large number of the most eminent contemporary Englishmen, while not a few Americans took advantage of a visit to London to have themselves painted by Mr Holl Indeed his very last work, and the only one which he completed since the opening of the present Academy Exhibition was of Mr Cornelius Vanderbilt Among the most successful of his pictures-and they have numbered at least 20 during each of the last eight or nine years-we may mention the portraits of Signor Piatti, Major Graham, the late Registrar General; Captain Sim, a naval veteran of 90 years old; Dr Craddock, the late Principal of Brasenose, ; Dr Bellamy, President of St John's; Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-1895 senior colonial civil servant in India, Iraq, and Afghanistan), Sir Frederick Roberts (1832-1914 colonial soldier in India, VC, hero of the enlisted man of the day as "Bobs"), Vice Chancellor Bacon, Lord Wolseley (183~19l3 Field Marshall and military moderniser), Mr Chamberlain (1836-l9l4Joseph "Radical Joe" Chamberlain, politician, radical, reformer), Lord Overstone (1796-1883 economist and financier), Mr Bright (1811-1889 one of the great intellectuals of nineteenth century British politics), and the Duke of Cleveland, the last a particularly brilliant work which attracted very great attention at the Academy of 1886. The portraits of this year are too well known to be named; everyone will remember especially the picture of Lord Spencer, which will probably be rated by posterity as the painter's masterpiece and the picture of Mr Gladstone which was last week given to its subject as a golden wedding present. Besides these half-lengths we may mention the two full-lengths of the Prince of Wales, painted for the Middle Temple and Trinity House, and that of the Duke of Cambridge in the uniform of a Field-Marshall Of these the Middle Temple portrait of the Prince is especially successful, and among the Royal portraits exhibited at Manchester last year it stood out conspicuous as the work of a man who is really the master of his art.

Mr Holl, who was made an RA in 1884, did not live to realize two of the great objects of his ambition-to paint the portraits of some beautiful women, and to paint a great group of portraits in costume, such as the Bench of Judges. The truth is that he was always so overwhelmed with commissions from eminent and wealthy men that each of these projects kept being deferred from year to year. There can be no doubt that he would have succeeded magnificently in the second task, for no one of his English contemporaries surpasses him in the gifts of colour, composition, and character painting. Whether he would have succeeded equally well with the face of a beautiful woman is more open to question; his almost over-masculine art might have found it difficult to adapt itself to smooth texture and soft outline. But even this difficulty might possibly have been triumphed over, as he had triumphed over many difficulties as great.

 It is interesting to note that his chief reason for taking to portraiture was disgust at the treatment his subject pictures had received from the hands of critics. They pronounced them sombre, monotonous, a little wanting in ideas, a little heavy in handling. The young Associate was indignant, and resolved to try a new line altogether; and this resolution of his, which has given us a long list of noble portraits, which has done so much of late years to raise the English school, may surely be counted to the credit of the critics, as some compensation for the many sins which are laid to their charge. For Mr Holl's portraits are undoubtedly among the great features of the recent history of English art. People call them mannered; but to what painter's work will not the term apply? They are sometimes charged with exaggeration, with undue emphasis; but it is more true to say that they are expressive to an extraordinary degree. There is brilliancy of execution about them, especially about the best of them, to which few works of the English school can draw a parallel. They were painted under the stress of excitement; the artist used to say that unless he put his whole force into a picture, unless he felt an emotion in painting it, he could not work at all. Sometimes he thought he was failing; and it is curious that this thought was painfully with him when he was at work on the greatest of all his successes, the portrait of Lord Spencer, which he called the most difficult task he ever undertook. It need not be said that every touch on all his pictures was his own, which is more than can be said of the portraits of Rubens, of Vandyck, and of Sir Joshua.

Personally Mr Holl was charming from the openness, and geniality of his character. He was not a conversationalist, but he had a fund of cheerful breezy talk for his sitters, and his many friends always found him glad to see them, when he had a free hour from work, and always chatty and cordial. He was very popular among his colleagues at the Academy, and no man worked harder than he at the Academy schools. He thought well of the prospects of English art, and used to say, by way of illustrating the progress that the present generation has seen, that work which in his youth would have gained a medal would now hardly gain admission to the schools.

Mr Holl's father died four years ago. His aged mother is living, and he leaves a widow and four daughters to mourn his loss. The funeral will be at Highgate, but the day, we believe, is not yet fixed.

My Comments

The unfortunate Frank Holl, as is stated clearly in the obituary above, turned to portraiture when his genre pictures were criticised for their element of pathos. He also moved into the sphere of social realism, as shown in his work "Visiting Day at Newgate." Pictures of this type showing the dreadful conditions of the urban poor were felt to be disloyal to the country, and Empire, by the Victorian establishment. Sir Alfred Temple in "Painting in the Queen's Reign," says that Holl's technique was always 'good and free, and his own.' Frank Holl was not physically strong, was of a nervous disposition, and grossly overworked. The wise Sir Alfred tells us, that in his last year, eight portraits by the artist were on the Academy walls, and that they were portraits of such men of influence, and celebrity that they could not fail to tax the power of any painter. One of Holl's daughters is recorded as saying that the nervous strain of working with such distinguished men, was a major contributor to her father's premature death. It is known that Holl felt very intimidated by Millais whose portrait he painted in the sitter's own studio.

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PHR.  11/12/2003.