Rhoda Holmes Nicholls (March 28, 1854 – September 7, 1930) was an English-American[1][2] watercolor and oil painter, born in Coventry, England.

A body of work was created in South Africa by Nicholls of Port Elizabeth area's scenery, wildlife and architecture.

Holmes studied the human figure with Giuseppe Cammarano and landscape painting with Achille Vertunni in Venice[5] or in Rome.

[8] She and her mother spent one year near Port Elizabeth in South Africa on the 25,000-acre ostrich farm owned by her two brothers.

"Enchanted" with the Karoo desert and mountainous scenery, fauna, wildlife, and architecture, Holmes made many paintings during her stay.

They got married in 1884 at Lyminster Church in Sussex, England,[3][5] honeymooned in Venice[10] and sailed for the United States[5] in the spring of 1884.

[6] Burr Nicholls, born in 1848, and his wife exhibited their works in some of the same shows, such as the Chicago Interstate Industrial Expositions.

The couple divorced and "newspapers widely warned women about the dangers of success and its potential influence on marital and domestic bliss.

[11] She returned to England following four years in Italy and South Africa, and her work was shown and positively received at Royal Academy of Arts exhibitions.

She exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

[5]Nicholls created illustrations for Howells' Venetian Life[5] in which she captured the "'serene, sunny moods of the sea city,' with its transparent atmosphere and the still heat of its unflinching sun, and the most vivid contrasts are made with a skill that blends without obliterating.

[16] In 2006, the Williams College Museum of Art held an exhibition of 25 of her watercolors and oil paintings—including landscapes, seascapes, and still lifes—from the collection of Walter and Berta Burr of Hoosick, New York.