Pretty girls in blue dresses at Ascot;
an elegant lady riding sidesaddle on a grey;
a male bystander in a grey "squash" hat with
distinctive black band (a self portrait of the
artist himelf); these are all hallmarks
of the work of Gilbert Holiday.
A consummate draughtsman trained in the
Royal Academy Schools, Holiday became perhaps the
greatest action painter of the horse in the history
of equestrian art. Lionel Edwrds, his great contemporary,
wrote "No one can, or ever could, depict the horse in
motion better than Gilbert did"
First an unofficial war artist, then a gunner
in the Great War, Holiday survived after a series
of hairaising escapes. His images of life and death
at the Front are stamped with the unmistakable
hallmark of truth.
Holiday remained cheerful despite all the tragedies of life
After the War he concerntrated on depicting every
aspect of the sporting scene. His love of people is
obvious - pictures are enlivened by human as
well as equine participants.
Holiday broke his back in a hunting accident in April 1937
but continued to paint as brilliantly as ever until pneumonia
finished him in the early days of 1937.
