Charles Holmes

Sir Charles John Holmes, KCVO (11 November 1868, Preston, Lancashire – 7 December 1936, Kensington, London) was a British painter, art historian and museum director.

From 1889, Holmes worked as a publisher's and printer's assistant in London, first for his cousin Francis Rivington, then at the Ballantyne Press, and finally with John Cumming Nimmo.

Self taught, he developed a highly personal style from studying European as well as Japanese sources like Hiroshige and Hokusai, travelling to Japan in 1889.

Examples for this can be found at Samlesbury Hall for which he painted a series of views around Blackburn und Preston (exhibited at Colnaghi's, London, in 1928).

He was also six times participant at the Venice Biennale between 1912 and 1930,[6] and became a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1929 (associate from 1924; vice-president in 1935).

Holmes received a knighthood in 1921, and was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1928, the year of his retirement.