Biography
Edgar Holloway (b. Mexborough, South Yorkshire, UK 1914 - d. 2008) started making etchings at the age of 10. He later attended evening classes at Doncaster School of Art. His father, who had been a miner and became a print seller, bought his son a printing press in 1929. Malcolm Salaman, a critic and connoisseur of contemporary printmaking, published one of Holloway’s first etchings in The Studio magazine which James McBey admired, after which Holloway exhibited in London and he came to the attention of John Copley, Muirhead Bone and Joseph Webb, as well becoming friends with of the artist William Wilson. By 1941, he had come under the influence of Eric Gill and had converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1943, he visited Capel-y-ffin, the former site of Gill's artistic community in Wales where he met Gill's former model, Daisy Monica Hawkins, whom he married shortly thereafter, as his first wife, and after her death he married the artist-printmaker Jennifer Boxall. Holloway also worked in lettering, cartography and dust-jacket designs for Britain's leading publishers. In 1979 he had a solo exhibition in London and there was a revival of interest in his work. In 1931 he had become a member of the Society of Artist Printers in Edinburgh with the encouragement of Ernest Lumsden (1993-1948) whose book The Art of Etching Holloway had used to teach himself and later in 1947, he was made a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and finally by 1991, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.
