HOLMES, John

1935 - 2011

John Holmes

John Holmes was born in Hackney, London on 13 February 1935, and grew up in Bethnal Green. He attended the Coopers' Company school in Bow then completed his national service in the Royal Air Force after which he worked as a porter at Smithfield market and at Bishopsgate station, whilst painting in the evenings. His first solo exhibition was in 1961, at the Raille Gallery, 52 Upper Street, Islington and in 1965 he studied at the London College of Printing and the following year he was appointed art director at the advertising company Ogilvy & Mather. John also took on multiple commissions, for book and record covers, paintings and illustrations for a diverse range of publications, including 'Nova', 'Money magazine', 'Playboy', the 'Australian' and the 'Chronicle of Higher Education' but was best known for the book covers he designed including for Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' (1970) and George Tremlett's 'The Rolling Stones Story' (1974). In 1973 he and his family moved to a farmhouse in rural Suffolk and John's work was featured in a retrospective, Time Flies, at Greyfriars Art Space, King's Lynn in 2009. John Holmes died on 17 August 2011 being survived by his wife Betty née Bullen, whom he married in 1956 and his two children.