The first retrospective of artist Francis 'Frank' Montague Holl, one of the great painters of the Victorian era.

Francis 'Frank' Montague Holl (1845-1888) was notable for his tragic social realism as well as his penetrating portraits. Although highly respected in his lifetime, his early death meant that he never fully received the acclaim that his work merited.

Holl was a prodigiously talented artist who entered the the Royal Academy Schools at the age of fifteen, where he won a gold medal for religious painting in 1863. A year later, two of his paintings were accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy where he showed work regularly until his death. He was also commissioned by Queen Victoria to paint No Tidings from the Sea.

Holl became part of an informal school of social-realist painting that flourished during the 1870s. Its aim was to draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working classes and the poor, and to implicitly criticise the social structures that maintained such conditions. His great subject pictures, often on bleak themes, were frequently criticised for their darkness but found great favour with the public, who empathised with his depictions. Funeral processions, child mortality and grief were very much part of life and his emotive images struck a chord with his audience.

In 1879, when Holl exhibited a portrait of the engraver Samuel Cousins at the Royal Academy, it created a sensation. In the nine years of life that remained he painted over 150 portraits: some of the greatest of his age-achievements which can be seen on a par with those of Watts and Millais. His influence was felt in his lifetime and later through the work of Van Gogh, who greatly admired Holl.

Exploring in parallel the subject paintings and he portraits, this book considers the importance of Holl's output and his continued relevance today. Leading scholars in the field look at different aspects of Holl's painting, while full catalogue entries examine certain works in detail.

Mark Bills is Curator of Watts Gallery, formerly Senior Curator of Paintings, Print and Drawings, Museum of London and Visual Arts Officer at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, UK. He has written widely including G.F. Watts Victorian Visionary: Highlights from the Watts Gallery Collection (2008), The Art of Satire: London in Caricature (PWP, 2006), and William Powell Frith , (co-editor and author, 2006), as well as Art in the Age of Queen Victoria: A Wealth of Depictions (editor and author) and A Victorian Salon (editor and author). He has written numerous articles on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British art for books and publications including London: The Illustrated History , Burlington Magazine , Apollo and Print Quarterly.

Peter Funnell is Curator of Nineteenth-Century Portraits and Head of Research Programmes at the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. Since joining the NPG in 1990 he has curated many exhibitions and led major projects ranging from the redevelopment of the Gallery's first-floor displays to directing the research of 10,000 portrait illustrations for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography of which he is a Consultant Editor.

Jane Sellars is Curator of Art at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate, UK has written widely about women and art. Formerly Education Officer at National Museums Liverpool and Director of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, author of several books on the Brontes, including The Art of the Brontes , (with Christine Alexander, 1995), and Writers' Lives: Charlotte Bronte (1997). For William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age (2007) she looked at the role of women in Frith's personal and professional lives. Jane Sellars was the main contributor and editor for Atkinson Grimshaw: Painter of Moonlight (2011), published by Harrogate Borough Council to accompany the award winning exhibition of the same name.
Barbara Bryant is an Art historian, writer, and consultant specializing in the work of G.F. Watts. She wrote the exhibition catalogue G.F. Watts Portraits: Fame and Beauty in Victorian Society (2004) and G.F. Watts Victorian Visionary: Highlights from the Watts Gallery Collection (co-editor and author, 2008). She was a major contributor to the exhibition The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910 at Tate Britain in 1997, she is the author of the forthcoming Oxford Dictionary of National Biography's entry on Watts, as well as other articles and essays on the artist and on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British art.

Philip McEvansoneya is Lecturer in the History of Painting at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. His research interests are in aspects of the history of art in Ireland and Britain with particular reference to the history of collections and the history of institutions. His PhD concerned the work of Frank Holl and Luke Fildes. He has published widely including articles in Burlington Magazine and Journal of the History of Collections .
Mary McMahon is Curatorial Fellow at Watts Gallery. She has an MA in Design History from the Royal College of Art, and a BA in Art History from University College London, UK and has spent two and a half years studying at the V&A, one and a half working at the National Art Library and two six-month internships at the National Portrait Gallery (Curatorial) and the V&A (Research).