Holdsworth captures accurately the hammering intensity of afternoon sunlight in a painting such as 'A Road To Nowhere' whose illusionism is so convincing, it almost makes you feel like checking the floor to see if any light spills over the bottom edge of the canvas.”-Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 1987
Anthony in Patzcuaro
Anthony Holdsworth was born in England in 1945. He was introduced to oil painting in high school by the New England painter, Loring Coleman. Holdsworth embarked on a painting career while working as Head of Outdoor Restoration for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy after the flood of 1966. He continued his studies at the Bournemouth College of Art in England where he studied with master draftsman Samuel Rabin and color theorist Jon Fish and at the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied with Julius Hatofsky.
He has shown with major galleries in Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. He has participated in two exhibitions at the Oakland Museum. He was included in the California Cityscapes exhibition at the San Diego Museum. He was a recipient of WESTAF-NEA fellowship in 1990. His work is in corporate and private collections worldwide.
Evocations of oddly vacant streets of urban America haunt the paintings of Anthony Holdsworth... [He is one of ] two of the most engrossing regionalists working today.”-Howard N. Fox, Curator, Contemporary Collection Los Angeles County Museum, WESTAF/NEA Regional Fellowships For Visual Artists. 1990.
Artist's Statement:
“ I generally work on location in the city. The urban landscape is an accurate and disquieting testament to our common condition. I encounter it first-hand in the hope of conveying its original intensity. Though sometimes devoid of people these ‘cityscapes’ emerge from my interaction with passersby and inhabitants at each site.
Color theory and Perceptionism (a term coined by color theorist Faber Birren) provide a foundation for my work. I weave qualities of light throughout a painting to create interacting harmonies that compel attention and convey a mood. I seek an approach in which the abstract dynamics of color and paint application play an essential role in conveying the essence of place. My interest in place has drawn me to paint traditional regions of Europe and Latin America where the close connection to the natural environment sheds light on the surrealistic disassociation of American streets.”
But the real subjects are abstract. Holdsworth paints the textures of these pavements, the clear but deceptive geometry of streets and facades, the hard, architectural edges and the clutter of signs. All this is composed as if by a painter of metaphysical still lives.”-Charles Shere, Oakland Tribune. July 8, 1986
Mid-morning, and Anthony Holdsworth is stalking the light. It’s tougher than you’d think. Sunlight dances differently each day, feinting and jabbing from various angles, hiding behind overcast skies, forcing him to reposition his canvas a centimeter to the right on the sidewalk in order to duplicate the previous day’s shadows.”-Chiori Santiago, The Museum of California, winter 2002.
This blog is a work in progress which will assume a far more dynamic presence in a few weeks. A printable version of my resume is available below: