Martha Holden’s large oil paintings are bold painterly representations of the landscape in the traditions of the plein air masters. 

Holden’s paintings are as strong visually as any of the paintings of the modernist movements’ masterworks

  Martha Holden is a painter working at the height of her skills. Her collection of canvas’s often references primitivist painting styles. Her art extends Fauvism and establishes her modernist credentials.   Holden’s paintings in traditional oil techniques applying dynamic hues in contrasting color schemes evoke the powerful and colorful paintings of the Fauve master painters. A prolific artist, she has sold work through Corcoran and many of the   fine art contemporary art galleries across the country and internationally.  Trained classically at the Cranbrook Academy of art, her deft brushstrokes fill fine art canvases in her West Adams District artist studio daily.  Please call now for a quote on the commissions of original art.

I attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, afterwards the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfiled Hills, Michigan.

I have always been fascinated by the power of color to create a visual play by association of pattern, harmony and rhythm.  The tools I use are a combination of techniques including painting, printmaking and drawing.

I have had the good fortune to travel and live in different cultures.

At a certain time I wished to leave the solitude of working in my studio.  I decided to explore painting with oils outdoors. Being in nature with all of my senses awakened, I burst open using colors that vibrate with my happiness. The rich colors of the oils spurred me to work spontaneously, without hesitation. I lived in France at that time and created a series of landscapes based upon the views that I found in the outskirts of Paris, France.

The powerful river Marne, trees, forests or a quiet pond gave me inspiration. Re-reading my paintings, absent of human form, made me once again question my solitude.  I decided to draw after the human model.  The beauty of a three dimensional subject, a human with all their expression made me anxious to work with this new freedom.  I continue to alternate between figurative and abstract in my work with drawing, oils and printmaking. 

My art studio is currently in the West Adams district of Los Angeles.

All art on this site, past or present, has a @ copyright that belongs to the artist. Artist, Martha Holden retains all rights to reproduction.Any uses by a second party must be approved in writing by the artist. Martha Holden retains all rights to any art ever signed by Martha Holden.