signed lower right: Edith Holmes
Copyright the Estate of the Artist.
Edith Lilla Holmes moved around Tasmania as a child, settling near Hobart where she lived for the rest of her life. She studied at the Hobart Technical College and for a time at the Julian Ashton School in Sydney where she met Thea Proctor and George Lambert.
She shared a studio with several other artists in Hobart, travelling regularly to Melbourne for exhibitions where her work was well received in the 1930s and 40s. Holmes was a founding member of the Tasmanian Group of Painters and exhibited annually at the Art Society of Tasmania (1927 -1972). She travelled to Europe in 1958; 1960 and 1971. Although she favoured landscapes, she also painted portraits, hanging in the Archibald on ten occasions between 1935 – 1954.
This work captures the silvery spray of an ornate fountain in a city square in Paris with echoes of the white highlight placed throughout the composition in the lamp posts.
Represented:
National Gallery of Australia; National Gallery of Victoria; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
private collection, Melbourne