Press release
Harry Holcroft: retrospective and unseen works
London, 23 - 28 February 2015
The Shard, London Cayman on oxbow lake, Challala, Bolivia The Marquesas, South Pacific
When Harry Holcroft died suddenly in November 2013, after falling down a flight of steps in
an ancient Indian palace, he was in the midst of another adventure. He had just spent a
month exploring and sketching around Oman, at one point stranding himself in quicksand,
surrounded by turtles “300km from any sign of humanity”, as he noted in his diary. Using
his twenty-two years of military training, he dug the car out of the quicksand with bits of
wood and it would seem implausible to many that such a well-travelled artist might meet his
maker falling down a flight of steps at Ahilya Fort just a week later.
Harry had been in the middle of exciting discussions with Princess Susan Al Said of Oman
about an exhibition to be held in one of the palaces, which they were planning for spring
2014. He would have shown a new series of paintings that documented the breathtaking
Omani local landscape, wildlife and culture. He was simultaneously writing a book to
accompany his illustrations of the South Seas and the Pacific. What turned out to be his
fatal trip to India began as his second ‘Artist in Residence’ season, at the request of Prince
Richard Holkar, with a view to setting up an art school and art classes for the children of the
local weaving community, the ‘Rehwa Society’ in Maheshwar.
Paintings found in his studios and sketchbooks will be on show for the first time in La
Galleria, in London's Pall Mall, alongside some of Harry’s Rainforest paintings, and other
European architectural works. Visitors will also be able to see annotated watercolours from
the artist’s diaries, drawn on location, which he would take back to his studios in Provence
or London and re-work into larger oils.
In 2004 whilst travelling through Malaysia, researching another book, Harry was horror
struck by what he saw first-hand as the appalling devastation of the rainforests. Haunted by
this image, he was determined to capture in his work, the ‘light and spirit’, the very
‘essence’, of these dwindling forests. He made a total of five trips to the Amazon and
travelled through Borneo and the Madagascan Rainforests. His experiences and works
finally published in Rainforest: Light and Spirit (2009), written in collaboration with the
renowned botanist and ecologist Professor Sir Ghillean Prance. The Prince of Wales, in his
foreword of the book, referred to it as a “call to arms.” His rainforest paintings were shown
in London’s West End, New York, and Provence and a number of these will be included in
One very special painting, the last oil that Harry painted in September 2013, was
commissioned to draw attention to the work of the Amazon Charitable Trust, and in
particular a proposed Amazon Science Research Village in the Xixuau Xiparina Reserve,
which will assist in the study of the preservation of these forests. Managing Trustee Robert
Pasley-Tyler says: “Harry’s tragic untimely death meant that he was robbed of the
opportunity to fulfil more of his immense ambitions to bring to light the plight of the world’s
rainforests. After creating a unique book about the rainforests, and a wonderful artist’s
impression of our plans for an Amazon based ‘Research Village’, he would have had so much
more to contribute in helping our first major project come to fruition. It is a great tribute to
his life and work, and a great honour for us that his wife Sarah is exhibiting this painting and
donating the proceeds to the Trust’s work.”
This painting will be auctioned during the exhibition to raise funds for the Trust’s Amazon
boat, which is fundamental to the charity’s operation.
For further information please contact Theresa Simon & Partners
theresa@theresasimon.com 020 7734 4800
Notes to editors
Harry Holcroft was educated at Worth Abbey and Downside. He read Geography at Hertford
College, Oxford, and Art at the Ruskin School of Drawing. After twenty-five years in the
Household Cavalry, he left to paint full time. During the 1970s he had various exhibitions of
his travels of the Middle East and the Sinai, as well as private commissions for companies as
diverse as Drambuie, Bear Stearns, BP Oil and The Economist. He has had over twenty
exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Provence and London, based on his worldwide travels
of the Middle East, Russia, Europe, India, China, Africa and the Amazon. Following the
publication of his trilogy of books: The Silk Route, The Spice Route and The Slave Route, his
latest book was Rainforest Light and Spirit, the result of having spent eight years focusing
exclusively on studying and painting the rainforests. His travels to the South Pacific and
India were ‘books in progress’.
The Amazon Charitable Trust
Set up in January 2009, the Amazon Charitable Trust's mission is the conservation and
improvement of the natural environment of the Amazon Rainforest, focusing on the Xixuau
Xiparina Reserve, by promoting biological diversity. Working with indigenous communities,
the Trust's aim is to relieve poverty by supporting their projects to become self sufficient,
while at the same time protecting the natural resources around them.
http://www.amazoncharitabletrust.org/
The Harry Holcroft Art Fund was set up by Prince Richard Holkar at Ahilya Fort in
Maheshwar as a tribute to the artist. Two students in the fifth year (11 year olds) are
awarded with inscribed cups and certificates, annually, for their artwork, along with a
savings certificate of RS1000. There are 230 pupils in the school.
See http://www.rehwasociety.org/rehwa_society.html and www.ahilyafort.com
Contacts
La Galleria Pall Mall
5B Pall Mall, 30 Royal Opera Arcade
London SW1Y 4UY
Tel 0207 930 8069
www.lagalleria.org
Opening hours: Monday – Saturday 10am-7pm
Sales enquiries: Sarah Holcroft sarahholcroft1@gmail.com 07712 186 067
Nearest tube: Piccadilly Circus