THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280650
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COVER STORY
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 136 lines
THIS WEEKEND, Bob Holland will be two of the artists featured at the first River Boardwalk Art Show in Smithfield.
One of those artists is the man named Holland who paints the traditional, realistic scenes one expects of a Hampton Roads native with a talent for graphic illustration, color, design and a regional reputation for success.
The other is a multi-faceted spirit of a man in the midst of an explosion of creativity. This is the deep thinker, the magical, mystical artist capable of salvaging a historic ship from the depths of the Atlantic or imagining an alien miss frolicking in her futuristic garden with what appear to be two mutant ostriches, obviously her pets, and transferring those images to canvas.
Both artists are molded into one man.
He was born and bred in Hampton, studied art under Jack Clifton as a child, designed automobiles for a while, spent years as a graphic designer at the now-closed General Electric television plant in Suffolk and finally took the plunge into art for a living.
``It was a hell of a difference,'' Holland said, stretched into a director's chair in his studio at the d'Art Center in Norfolk. ``I went from corporate benefits to being on the street with my art.''
The result of that plunge is the dual artist Holland is today, a man with sharp, blue eyes and a shock of Einstein-esque, graying hair who easily molds himself into whomever - or however - he chooses to be on any particularly creative day.
``From Williamsburg prints to outer space,'' Holland said, grinning. ``As an artist, I don't have any boundaries.''
And Holland has few boundaries when it comes to his Hampton Roads' roots.
When he migrates from Norfolk to Smithfield on Saturday and Sunday for the River Boardwalk show, he will return to his father's home, that small town in northern Isle of Wight County that Holland remembers visiting as a child, spending lazy summer days with cousins at a summer home the family owned at Morgart's Beach on the James River.
The elder Holland, now deceased, went to Smithfield High School and played baseball for the town's team. Holland is related to the Clays, still a prominent Smithfield family.
And his paternal grandmother's maiden name was Hearn. She was related to the man who built the turn-of-the-century Victorian home on Smithfield's Main Street known as The Collage that houses the Isle of Wight Arts League, the group sponsoring the boardwalk show.
Holland's father moved to the Peninsula to work at Newport News Shipbuilding. Eventually, his family settled in Hampton, where Holland's mother still lives.
The artist, after years of childhood lessons from Clifton, graduated from Hampton High School and studied commercial design at the Richmond Professional Institute, now Virginia Commonwealth University. From there, he went on to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. He was hired by Ford Motor Co. when he was still in school.
By then, Holland had married, and he and his wife, Sharon, who still shares his life today, settled in Dearborn, Mich. He was designing automobiles for Ford when he heard that General Electric was opening a television plant in Suffolk.
``When I found out GE was here, we were on the plane and coming home,'' Holland said.
That was 1969. Holland stayed with the company until the plant closed in 1987. He was offered another position out of state. Holland chose instead to pursue art full time.
``I came right here to d'Art,'' he said. ``I knew I needed to go to an office to work. I wanted to be with my peers.''
Today, Holland works both at the studio in the downtown art center and at a studio in his home in Chesapeake. He travels to shows up and down the East Coast, most recently to the Charleston Maritime Festival. And wherever he goes, his reputation follows.
Holland, 56, is probably best known as a maritime artist, and his love for the waters surrounding Hampton Roads makes that kind of artistic endeavor one of his favorite ways to spend time.
``When people see my work, a lot of them ask, `Is this the same artist?' '' Holland said. ``But, if I'm out on my boat and I see a tug doing something really interesting, I get just as excited as I do when I create my own scene.''
Holland's traditional art and a version of what he calls his ``visionary'' art came close to intertwining in one of his best-known paintings. He was commissioned in 1992 by the Officers Wives Club of the nuclear-power carrier George Washington to do a painting of the ship. It was to be commissioned that year on the Fourth of July, and the women had decided exactly how they wanted the painting to look.
``They wanted the ship in the background, and they wanted to make sure it was headed home, into Hampton Roads,'' Holland said, pointing at a channel marker that accomplished exactly what his clients wanted. ``And they wanted the historic frigate George Washington riding along beside it.''
The problem was there were no prints, sketches or interpretations of the earlier George Washington, sunk somewhere deep in the Atlantic.
``I had no pictures, nothing to work from,'' Holland said. ``There were no drawings, anything. I had sail plans, deck dimensions, drawings of similar ships.''
The result is the haunting image of a ship resurrected from history alongside its mammoth, modern namesake. The painting hangs now in the officers' wardroom, but an early concept of the final version was a gift from the ship to sponsor Barbara Bush.
She said at the time of the commissioning that the watercolor, with oyster boats floating in the foreground, would hang in her husband's study.
Today, Barbara Bush is just one of Holland's patrons. His works are owned by international private and corporate collectors including Otis Elevator, Reynolds, General Electric, Goodman Segar Hogan, Fort Magruder Inn and the Pentagon.
``I'm a success in my own mind, even beyond being a success,'' he said, smiling.
Beyond success, in Holland's mind, could mean the recent ascension of his work to the halls of Nauticus, the Norfolk waterfront's new, multi-million dollar tourist attraction.
So far, Holland's work, mostly his futuristic, visionary series, is the only artwork hanging in Nauticus. His limited-edition prints are sold in the gift shop. And he is fast gaining the reputation as the official artist of Nauticus. Holland calls it a ``wonderful opportunity.''
Holland is a traditionalist in most of his art. But it may be his visionary series, showing space ships hovering in front of foreign moons, gigantic spheres above concave disks, that he is most proud of.
``It's a very expressive, individualistic way of painting,'' he said. ``It's coming up with a concept that is non-existent. All of the parameters are your own. That's creativity.''
Holland exhibits in many state and regional shows. He's a member of the Virginia Watercolor Society, the American Society of Marine Artists, Tidewater Artist Association, Peninsula Fine Arts Center and the Chesapeake Fine Arts Commission. He also is on the art advisory council of Thomas Nelson College.
Despite his success, he's an easygoing, laid-back, talkative kind of artist who is capable of relating to his subjects - past, present and future.
``Obviously, in this life, I'm on the right channel,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Bob Holland works in his studio at the d'Art Center in Norfolk.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY ARTIST by CNB