Elizabeth Gertrude Holliday (23 May 1925—3 April 2011),
known professionally as Betty Holliday and Betty Holliday Deckoff,
was an American visual artist and educator who was active on
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...
, New York, and in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
[ Her most well-known works are large figurative paintings and drawings. Her early paintings were dominated by color, as she was trained when ]Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...
was the dominant American art movement; later she became interested in photography and, as a result, experimented in "decolorizing" her paintings and drawings.
Early life, education, and employment
Betty Holliday was the youngest daughter of Gertrude Holliday and George Alvin Holliday (1887–1970); she had one sister, Priscilla.[ She earned a BA in ]Art History
Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...
at Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
(1945), studied painting and drawing at the Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists.
Although artists may stu ...
(1942–47), and earned an MA in Art History at Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
(1950), now fully merged with Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
After completing her formal education, Holliday worked as an editorial associate for ''ARTnews
''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countri ...
'' (1950–55), which familiarized her with the works of contemporary artists.[ This access to the art scene proved instrumental in her recruitment of visiting artists for the Cumberland Center for Continuing Education, the adult education program at the ]Great Neck School District
Great Neck Public Schools is a public school district serving students residing in specific areas of Great Neck, North New Hyde Park, North Hills, and Manhasset Hills, New York. It is Union Free School District Number 7 in the Town of North H ...
, where Holliday was a well-respected teacher from 1955 until 1984. She also taught privately and many of her students became professional artists, including Shirley Gorelick
Shirley Gorelick (24 January 1924 – 19 October 2000) was an American figurative painter, printmaker, and sculptor. She "rejected both the extremes of nonobjectivity and photographic exactitude," choosing instead to use a range of sources that ...
, Deborah Katz, Peter Galasso, and Sigrid Somers.
Abstract Expressionism
Holliday began to explore nonobjectivity in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but her figural abstractions attracted the earliest published critical attention. ''My Father'' (1960), a monumental abstraction of George Alvin Holliday seated in a chair, was prominently reproduced in ''Art in America
''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
'' to illustrate how the nontraditional, unsymbolic figurative works of "fledgling artists" attested to the flexibility of abstraction and representation. Even in her earliest works, Holliday was able to "reveal the truth of the figure which is just as well expressed by its stance, its total gesture, as by its individual features" through the language of Abstract Expressionism.[ Her heavy, bold, interpenetrating, and in some cases obliterating, gestural strokes of white, gray, black, and brown invited comparisons to ]Franz Kline
Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mothe ...
and Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...
.[ A few years later, she asserted her expressive independence in a group of paintings and drawings on the theme of figures in striped clothing against a green backdrop, including ''In the Garden'' (1964) and ''On the Grass III'' (1965), both large canvases. Holliday's command of compositional space and structure, which was already evident in ''My Father'', became more nuanced and her forms more decentralized; her figures were also more enigmatic.][ As noted by one reviewer, Holliday surpassed "factual representation" to achieve "an expressiveness and concern for human meaning" through both the subject and her handling of it.][
]
Photography
Holliday began to explore photography as an alternative expressive medium in 1967 and 1968, when she focused almost solely on her photographic experiments in "decoloration,"[ which led her to create a number of photo-sculptures, including ''Vertical Broom'', ''Horizontal Broom'', and ''The Farragut Stairs'' (all 1968). Each features a single photograph, with its abundant repetitions affixed to a large construction, resulting in a visually stimulating, rhythmic arrangement of black and white elements.][ A similar synthesis of form and content is found in ''Model for an Improbable Billboard'' (1967–69), a photo-sculpture featuring the American poet ]Marianne Moore
Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit.
Early life
Moore was born in Kirkwood, ...
, who was photographed by Holliday during a public reading at the Loeb Student Center at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
in 1967.
Later works
Around 1972, Holliday reintroduced some limited color and returned to painting large figures, characterized by bold brushstrokes and simple, direct compositions.[ At this time of renewed emphasis on figurative painting, Holliday was invited to contribute to a feminist collaborative installation called '' The Sister Chapel'', which was conceived by her former student, Ilise Greenstein, and came to dominate Holliday's work for almost two years.][ Although Holliday vacillated when choosing her subject for the installation, she eventually settled on Marianne Moore, recalling her "steel-sharp wit disguised as reticent gentility—Socrates hiding out in the person of the local librarian."] Holliday's fascination with Moore led to the creation of countless works. When ''The Sister Chapel'' premiered in 1978, one reviewer reported that Holliday had executed three hundred drawings and five full-sized paintings of Marianne Moore.[ Holliday’s final painting, ''Marianne Moore'' (1977), was the outcome of numerous and evolving studies, which included drawings of the head, umbrella, and a bentwood rocker of a type designed by ]Michael Thonet
Michael Thonet (2 July 1796, Boppard – 3 March 1871, Vienna) was a German-Austrian cabinet maker, known for the invention of bentwood furniture.
Career
Thonet was the son of the master tanner Franz Anton Thonet of Boppard. Following a carpe ...
.[ When ''The Sister Chapel'' was first shown, ''Marianne Moore'' was identified by one reviewer as "probably the most successful painting—as a painting—in the chapel."][
In the early 1980s, Holliday's attention shifted to sunflowers and dynamic human figures, both of which were executed on a large scale, usually in the form of drawings.] In these works, her figures were more energetic than in her earlier, more static paintings.[ ''The Flute'' and ''Raised Ukelele'' were among the drawings of "a swirling, spinning female form, engulfed in sweeping lines that define a cape or scarf, while holding aloft a flute or ukelele. The entire effect is one of motion, of energy, of playfulness."] At the time, Holliday’s monumental and expressive figures were described by a reviewer in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' as "a body of work that restates a classic tradition with marked originality."
Holliday's final works were large-scale drawings, including ''The Judgment of Paris'' (1990), which was described by Helen Harrison as "a witty, geriatric takeoff on the mythological encounter."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holliday, Betty
1925 births
2011 deaths
Painters from New York City
Feminist artists
People from Port Washington, New York
20th-century American painters
20th-century American women painters
Barnard College alumni
Art Students League of New York alumni
Radcliffe College alumni
21st-century American women