Bud Holman

Bud Holmsn
Add a Photo Bud in his studio
Born	Charles Edward Holman II (1926-07-30)July 30, 1926 Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Died	June 27, 2023(2023-06-27) (aged 96) Nogales, Arizona, U.S.
Known for	Painting, sculpture
Movement	Abstract Expressionism, New York School
Website	Catalogue Raisonné

Charles Edward "Bud" Holman II ( July 30, 1926 – May 27, 2023) was an American painter and sculptor. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly and Jasper Johns.

Holman's style evolved in the 1950s to settle on abstract landscapes. While some paintings are more abstract than others it is possible to find the horizon line or recognize mountains in all of his works. Painting well into his nineties his works were progressively more abstract.

Life and Career

Born July 30, 1926 in Topeka, Kansas. Holman graduated from Stanford University in 1950, with a BA and MA in Art History and Archeology...

in 1954, Holman worked at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY. From 1955 - 1959 Holman paintings were exhibited in group shows at Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery. In 1958, Holman worked for a year as Director of the Bertha Schaefer Art Gallery. While there he displayed several of his paintings in group shows with Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly.

The Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas acquired two large paintings in 1961

Holman designed and produced for Sports Illustrated and Abercrombie and Fitch the House in the Sky (Stan Moor House) on Abercrombie and Fitch's rooftop on Madison Avenue.

In the 1970's the New Mexico Museum of Art acquired three of Holman's works. Holman showed paintings at Jean Seth's Art Gallery on Canyon Road.

In the 1980's the Tucson Museum of Art acquired four of Holman's paintings. In 2014, Holman attended an opening in the Morris Gallery of the NOTO Arts Center for a presentation of his drawings of local buildings he had done as a young man. Sixty-three of his drawings were donated to the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. Several of these sketches were used in the 1950's for the Shawnee County Historical Society covers. In 2016, the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas hosted a Retrospective Show. After the show the Mulvane Art Museum acquired 5 paintings. In 2021, Holman exhibited in the Hamptons Fine Art Fair in South Hampton, New York where some of his Sagaponack series were shown

Work

Drawing

Holman began his artistic path sketching homes in Topeka, Kansas and the surrounding towns. Grandma Morns School House, 1950 is an example of the understanding of perspectives. A work in chalk of the desert in Southwest, 1948 is full of color and detail. During a cross Atlantic trip on a cargo ship Holman filled a sketchbook with drawings of insects and fish. Fish #3, 1951 is a page from his sketchbook. While traveling through Europe he filled another sketchbook with drawings experimenting in color as in Unnamed #4 1964, Unnamed #3, 1964, and Unnamed #1, 1964

Painting

Holman’s painting evolved into an expressionistic treatment of space and texture with a color pallet that tended to be more muted and constrained. More abstract than his later works, Holman’s paintings are firmly fixed in geographic terrain and his impression of the cultural landscape. Desert Landscape, 1964-70, Sagaponack, 1965-70, and Red Landscape, 1965-70, are characterized by highly textured surfaces built up over time, and horizons interrupted by architecture and suggestions of brush strokes that move in and out of view. Connected to a lineage of artists such as Cy Twombly, Alfred Jensen, John Grillo, Angelo Ippolito, and Franz Kline, Holman experimented with different techniques through the fifties and sixties all the while honing his skills. Holman’s Jazz, 1969-70, seems to be influenced by Jensen’s paintings of grids that incorporated brightly colored geometric forms executed in a thick impasto, but it was preceded by almost fifteen years with New York #2, 1954-55. There is a mathematical precision to Jazz and New York #2 that is devoid of space and reveals the stylistic foundation upon which Holman often builds—formal structures submerged beneath thick layers of paint intersected by a distant horizon.

Holman acknowledges that Kansas is deeply rooted in his work. Although it may lack the tortured drama of landscapes of the Southwest, the Kansas prairie, with its tall grasses and numbing distances, possesses subtleties in its open and lean vistas. Kansas Sunset, 1961-65, was completed sixteen years after Kansas Ghost Town #1, 1950-1953 when he was living in New York. The red pallet and thickly textured paint and horizon that soars high above suggest the later landscapes of the Southwest, but it is the drama of skies that surround the boundless Kansas prairie hills and the suppressed energy of a world turned to fire during the annual controlled burns that is communicated.

Tuareg Landscape 1 and 2 with their deep blues energized with marks of black and earth are not so much records of the landscape, but rather purvey the essence of a semi-nomadic, desert dwelling people who inhabit a large band of territory that includes middle and western Sahara. In the same vein, Blue Landscape, 1968-70, with its patterns of color forming fields of static across the horizon, suggests the rhythms of vocal patterns that are the essence of ‘mantinades’— the art of verbal or musical expression that is characteristic of Cretan daily routines. The energetic eruption centered in a sea of blue alludes to the tempo of the Mediterranean and vibrant patterns of island life.

A shift in Holman’s color pallet emerged following his relocation to Santa Fe. The impressionistic quality of light evolved as a defining characteristic of his work, and his reference to the landscape deepened. New Mexico Landscape, 1975-80, describes a curious and animated horizon that distinguishes the New Mexico skyline and captured Holman’s imagination.

Santa Fe Landscape #2, 1975-80; Rincon Mountains, 1983-85, and Red Sky Landscape, 2010-14, span almost 40 years of his practice. The glory of a desert in bloom and awash with golden light from a vanilla sky are reminiscent of impressionist works that emphasize qualities of light, color, and atmosphere. But the spirit and temperament of the desert are what define this work. In all its variety and character, the landscapes of his life are what shine through. Holman’s paintings form a narrative arc of a ninety-year journey that started in Topeka, Kansas, and remains true throughout his career as a painter. In The Way to Ithaka, 2005-15, Holman references the ten-year voyage of Ulysses to find his way home.

Sculpture

Only two of several sculptures Holman created in New York survived the moves west. Little Bird, 1969-1970 and Found Driftwood, 1965-1970 are colleges in wood made of found items in the city and on the beach. Holman worked on several designs for household furnishings from small wall sconces to very large wardrobes - all of his designs were then painted. Peter Hastings Falk, Editor & Chief Curator of the online art magazine, DiscoveriesInAmericanArt.com said "Bud Holman's style and approach to landscape painting are truly unique in the history of American art. This master captures the energy of the Southwest's mountains and high desert in a myriad of colors applied with bravura brushwork, resonating in our subconscious.

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