Theodor Von Holst
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- United Kingdom
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Biography
Theodor von Holst (1810 – 1844) was born in London. His precocious talent was recognised early on, when Sir Thomas Lawrence bought drawings from the ten-year-old von Holst. Henry Fuseli was a family friend, and, after copying from the antique at the British Museum, von Holst became his pupil at the Royal Academy Schools in 1824, the last year of Fuseli’s life. Fuseli had a profound influence on von Holst, with a similar fascination for the bizarre and fantastic. His work is, however, more colourful than Fuseli’s.
Like Fuseli, von Holst largely painted literary subjects. He was the first artist to illustrate Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’. Almost half his work was inspired by the German Romantics, such as Goethe. While recognised for his imagination and the quality of his draughtsmanship, his choice of subjects, with its emphasis on the supernatural and demonic did not always accord with fashionable taste. Dante Gabriel Rossetti greatly admired his work and viewed him as an important link between English Romantic painters, such as Blake and Fuseli, with the Pre- Raphaelite circle.
Gustav Holst, the composer, was his great nephew.
His work can be seen at the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Gustav Holst Birthplace Museum, Cheltenham, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, and Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, IN.
Additional Information
Yale Center for British Art
V&A
British Museum
