Collections

William Wilson RSA

Artist: Holloway, Edgar, RE · 1914-2008

This is the first of two pencil portraits of William Wilson RSA both of which were subsequently used by Holloway as the basis for etchings.

It was executed in Holloway's digs at 12 Parkhill Road, London.

This drawing was copied as is for the print "William Wilson" (Meyrick 95) an impression of which is held in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (GMA 390). The un numbered edition ran to only about a dozen prints and the plate was destroyed.

Holloway and Wilson first met in 1935 the year this drawing was made. Wilson, in his position as Secretary of the Society of Artist Printers had written to Holloway that year and the pair met in Holloway's digs in London that Autumn when Wilson was studying engraving under Robert Austin at the RCA whilst on an Andrew Grant scholarship from Edinburgh College of Art.

Wilson provided Holloway with his first formal introduction to etching. From this point onwards Holloway adopts a similar sense of mood which is characteristic of Wilson's etched work.

The pair became close friends and in January of the following year they shared a cottage together for six months at Nettleswell Common where they worked together sharing a printing press which they purchased.

The story of their relationship is recounted in Chapter Three of "Against the Odds, the Life of Edgar Holloway, Artist" written by his second wife Jennifer Holloway and published by Sansom & Co., in 2014.