From August 2011 article in the 'Inquirer & Mirror' -  
by Hana Schuster, I & M Contributing Writer

The Hidden Treasures of Old South Wharf

One of Old South Wharf’s longest running galleries, Eric Holch’s Holch Gallery, offers customers a unique twist on Nantucket-themed art, thanks to the artist’s unique limited-edition silk-screen prints, posters and his signature line of nautically-inspired silk neckties.

Since 1976, when Holch began exhibiting his work at the Main Street Gallery, his prints and oil paintings have been exhibited in over 250 galleries and museums throughout the United States, Bermuda, England, Australia and Japan. His distinctive images have also appeared on everything from magazine covers and cards to ceramics, jigsaw puzzles and boxer shorts.

Holch is one of the few contemporary printmakers whose work was selected for international distribution by the Original Print Collectors Group, Ltd., a leading authority on investing in art.

Growing up in Andover, Mass. and Greenwich, Conn., Holch spent every summer on Nantucket where he developed a passion for sailing and being on the water, both of which play a role in his serigraph prints.

"I've always tried to capture the essence of Nantucket," said Holch, who missed the island while at college and began painting Nantucket’s quaint side streets, warm sandy beaches, summer sailing races and unique New England architecture, hoping that the images would transport him back to the island he loved so much. "Painting is a way to feel connected to a place," Holch said. "Painting Nantucket always took me right back there."

Holch began his career as an artist doing oil paintings, but felt that the medium made it difficult to develop a unique style. “With all the talented artists on Nantucket, I wanted people to look at something I’ve done and immediately know that it’s my work,” Holch said. "I found that serigraphs (silk-screen prints) afforded me the ability to do that."

"I think now people really recognize these prints as mine. It’s a very distinctive look that no one else on Nantucket is doing."

Limited to flat planes of color, Holch must find ways to keep his images simple, while making sure to provide customers with enough color, detail and varied compositions to maintain their interest.

"It’s a tricky balance," Holch said of printmaking. "It can get technically very challenging," as a finished print must go through many stages of production, often taking the artist up to four months to complete a single piece.

Holch hand-cuts stencils for each color plane, a tedious process that requires skill and, according to the artist, "lots and lots of patience." Special effects can be achieved by painting, sponging and scraping the stencils, or by mixing colors and creating "blends," which the artist said can be one of the most complicated facets of printmaking.

Holch uses oil-based paints, archival inks and 100 percent cotton rag paper to create original prints that are durable and resistant to fading.

Holch's formal art training began at the Trinity-Pawling School where he won its first annual art award. He continued his studies in art, architecture and art history at Hobart College and, after graduating, won numerous awards in juried art exhibitions throughout New England.

New to the gallery this year are Holch's torn-paper deconstructions, prints that he creates by tearing apart sections of reject prints and reassembling them into a new, entirely unique piece.

According to Holch, his deconstructed prints have been very popular and are almost entirely sold out, though one of them, "Beach Party," still hangs in the gallery.

"The images in my prints are very crisp and I do lots of blue skies and sunny beach scenes, so that creates a really interesting contrast with the torn edges of the deconstructions. I think it’s visually very dynamic," he said.

Also new this year, and marking a significant departure from Holch's usual imagery, is a series of folk-art-style whaling themed prints that are reminiscent of some ivory scrimshaw works, seen in "Siren Song," an image of a mermaid perched on a rock in the ocean as a whaling ship passes by, and "Salty Dog," depicting a man and his dog rowing a wooden boat past an enchanting lighthouse.

Holch's posters of various Nantucket scenes have been very popular over the years among Nantucket visitors looking for ways to keep their island memories alive. The posters are available with or without "Nantucket" featured at the top in white block letters.

Also popular are his many stylized beach scenes featuring umbrellas and matching beach chairs. "When you go to the beach, you see coolers and towels and people everywhere," said Holch, who wanted to simplify the beach experience by depicting a day at the shore through only umbrellas and chairs in what he calls his "sorbet colors," light pastel shades that indeed seem more appropriate on an ice cream cone than a canvas

Near and dear to Holch’s heart are his sailing prints. An avid sailor himself, Holch completed a series of smaller prints featuring various Beetle Cat sailboats in a rainbow of colors that belong to him and his friends.

Holch said Nantucket is a "never-ending source of inspiration" for him. "It's amazing when '’ve been doing this for over 30 years that I can still be inspired by the same place, that I can always find something new in Nantucket," he said.

From July 2010 article in the 'Inquirer & Mirror' -  by Lindsay Pykosz, I & M Contributing Writer

In 1976, Eric Holch finished his first print, “Summer Solstice,” the work that jump-started his silk-screening and oil-painting career that has now spanned almost 35 years. With works on exhibit throughout the United States, Bermuda, Japan and Australia, Holch said that he still makes it a point to challenge himself while making sure he keeps painting what he enjoys.

“That’s the cool thing about art – there are no rules,” he said. “Art is personal, you’re doing it for yourself. You wouldn’t want to paint something or create something that you didn’t want to. I always tell myself this and every day I push the boundaries of the medium.”

Known for his prints depicting bright, sunny days and colorful sailboats, Holch recently branched out from his norm and created “Race Week,” a print of a foggy, gray day during Nantucket Race Week, an island sailing event every August.

“I had done the Race Week logo and after the logo was finished, I was out on my boat and I had a judge with me,” said Holch, an avid sailor. “I was taking pictures of the boats going by and the result was the first print that I’ve made that’s of a gray day. That gave me the OK to keep doing something different than what I might necessarily be used to.”

Holch’s prints are achieved using a process that was developed in the early 1900s. This printmaking technique involves cutting and layering multiple colors onto a heavy paper – a practice that takes a lot of precision and patience.

“I start with sketches and sometimes reference photography and keep tightening it,” said Holch. “I switch back and forth from color sketches to black and white sketches and cut films for each color – that’s where uniformity comes into play. I then have to figure out the order of the colors to make them overlap.”

Holch said that he typically works from light colors to dark – specifically from pale yellows to dark greys – to make sure that the colors don’t blend together incorrectly. In some of his prints, such as “Harbor Porch,” Holch said that he layered yellow on top of a gray-blue color to give the floor of the porch a two-toned look.

Over the winter, Holch’s travels to Gasparilla Island, Fla. produced new additions like “Beach Break” that feature his staple pastel colors. Also new this year is “Grey Lady,” a print depicting Nantucket’s historic downtown with the harbor in the foreground; and “Reflections,” which captures a solo Beetle Cat sailboat resting in the harbor on a quiet fall morning. In addition, Holch has also been working on deconstructions of his pieces which leave him with a different version of the original print.

“I take my old prints that were damaged and pull them apart and put them back together in a different way,” he said. “That’s a lot of fun for me.”

Although deconstruction gives Holch a chance to play with prints he’s already completed, he said that he is usually working on new images, often with subjects that may be the same as previous prints.

“Certain things pique my fancy, like umbrellas and beach chairs,” he said. “Because there is a lot of prep work and I end up working on something for months, I am usually working on new images.”

Although Holch’s gallery has moved around a few times, he has been somewhere on Old South Wharf consistently since 1978, a place he feels is relaxed and “more of the way it used to be.” For him, Old South Wharf is a place where people can come down and separate themselves from the busy streets of town.

“People here look after each other and the people who visit here realize that,” he said. “There was a lady who came in just the other day who has a house here that she comes to during the summer, but never came down to the wharf. She finally came down and was amazed at the quality of what’s down here. There’s good quality, a lot of variety and it’s all good stuff.”

The Holch Gallery, located at 10 Old South Wharf, is open daily from 10 a.m.-8 p.m. For more information, visit www.ericholch.com or call (508) 228-7654.

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From July 2009 article in the 'Inquirer & Mirror' -  by Lindsay Pykosz, I & M Contributing Writer

Painter-printmaker Eric Holch making his mark with scenes of summer

Photo by Nicole Harnishfeger

When Eric Holch was younger, his mother, a sculptor and fashion designer, would require every Nantucket house-guest to paint a picture by the time their stay was over. The result was a wall of paintings from a variety of different people with a variety of different styles. Surrounded by art and artists, Holch says, influenced him to pursue a career as a painter and printmaker – a career that has brought him much success and happiness over the past 30 years.

“When I was 15, my father gave me the first in a series of silkscreened posters by Bobby Bushong,” said Holch. “When I got out of college, I started silkscreening and the first prints I did were very popular.”

While Holch had a job in advertising at the start, in 1985 he decided to quit his job to become a full-time artist. Doing most of his work in the winter, Holch said he has been working on a series that pays homage to Bushong’s original posters. Work on this series started in 2000, and Holch said that there are seven total posters so far, with more possibly on the way. “I started working on this series nine years ago as a sort of tribute to Bushong and those posters I got when I was fifteen,” Holch said. “While Bushong’s prints had ‘Nantucket’ written on the bottom, mine have it written on the top. Every year, I do one or two new ones.”

Another series that Holch has worked on in the past includes a series of umbrellas and beach chairs. This series was the beginning of a new road of experimentation for him. “These prints became more stylized rather than the reality of the real beach scene hodge-podge,” said Holch. “There are a lot of what I call 'sorbet' colors and it was the first time I'd ventured into these soft summer colors, and that led me into a whole other direction.” One of his works, “Race Week,” he described as a "leap of faith" for his audience with it's grey sky and green water, but was very well received. Another, entitled “Sunset Sail,” was the most complex piece he’s ever worked on.  “It was definitely the hardest one I’ve ever done,” said Holch, an avid sailor. “I worked with a color palate that I’m not used to working in. I used a lot more blends than I’m used to and this one required a lot more experimentation.”  

While Holch has thrived with painting and silkscreening, he says that one never knows what direction the art world will lead you. Over the years, his artwork has been used to create cards, towels, magazine covers, coffee mugs, handbags, T-shirts, neckties, puzzles and even boxer shorts. “In the late 1980s, there was a huge puzzle craze in Japan,” said Holch. “The Japanese were publishing jigsaw puzzles using my artwork, and they would come to New York, where I was exhibiting, with pockets full of cash to buy a whole bunch of artwork for licensing. It was really quite funny.  But ever since then I've continued to publish jigsaw puzzles in the US and England.”

While Holch has jumped from gallery space to gallery space on Old South Wharf over the years, he has not regretted one minute of it. Starting in the late 1970s at the Granary Gallery, where he stayed for 15 years, he moved to the Sun Gallery, then took one of the last "shucking shacks" on Old South Wharf where he stayed for 10 years. He’s been in his current space for five years. Holch’s work is also shown at Nantucket Looms and The Lion’s Paw, among other island locations.

Holch’s love for art has taken him on an extensive journey, one that has been very rewarding, he said. His dream of becoming a successful artist has come true, and he said he can’t imagine doing anything else. “Print-making is a medium that is so unique,” said Holch. “It makes the work that we do so much more recognizable. When I was younger, I told myself that I wanted to do something in art, to leave something behind, to leave something tangible behind. And I’ve done just that.”

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Photo by Bevin Bixby/Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror

Eric Holch celebrates three decades on Old South Wharf

By Gabriella Burnham
Inquirer & Mirror Staff Writer
2008

When Eric Holch spent summers on Nantucket growing up, gallery openings were like “Great Gatsby” parties, with fabulous patrons dressed in coat and tie, toting their gin and tonics from gallery to gallery around town. Read entire article >>