John Holden Viewing Room
British, b 1942

John Holden (b. 1942) is one of Britain's most distinctive and most overlooked abstract painters. Trained at Medway College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, he turned to hard-edged geometric abstraction in 1964 after encountering the work of Franz Kline at the Whitechapel Gallery — a development encouraged by William Scott and shaped by tutors Derrick Greaves and Edward Bawden, alongside whom Holden later worked on murals for the BP Headquarters and the British Pavilion at the 1967 Montreal World Fair.

Scroll down for an exclusive preview of John Holden's paintings and take this opportunity to add his work to your collection...
John Holden Viewing Room

His paintings draw on the geometries of his urban surroundings — road markings, docklands, walled gardens — filtered through the influence of Albers, Mondrian and Klee. Built up by hand in layers of pristine acrylic, they are characterised by a highly individual palette and a rigorous formal control. As Robert Clark wrote in the Guardian, Holden's work dissolves "the architectural structures of the urban environment down to their geometrical essence."

A member of the London Group and a long-serving Head of Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores University, Holden exhibited internationally throughout his career, with shows in Germany and Belgium and a touring retrospective in 1996. His work was collected by Richard Rogers among others, and he was latterly represented by Agnew's Gallery, London.

His last solo exhibition was in 2011. Now living with severe dementia, Holden will not paint again. We are privileged to be presenting his work at Goldmark Gallery for the first time.

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