Painter and art teacher, Henry P. Holgate, became the Head of the Art Department at Beckfoot Grammar School, as well as gaining recognition for his own distinctive artwork.
Henry was born in December 1931 at Habergham, near Burnley, and attended Accrington Grammar School. He studied art at Burnley School of Art from 1951-54, gaining honours in the advanced National Diploma in Design, with a specialism in pottery and lithographic printing. He then studied at Leeds College of Art, gaining a teaching certificate in 1956.
Henry married Jessie Barton in 1955 and after a period of teaching in Lancashire he and his wife moved to Bingley in 1962, where he began teaching art at Beckfoot Grammar School, eventually becoming the Head of Art at the school.
In his own time he painted predominantly urban and landscape scenes, characterised by their honest depiction of the scene in question, and in 1976 he a local journalist (Bingley Courier, 23/3/1976) that he was ‘aiming for the truth’ as he saw it, warts and all’.
‘Barrow Docks’, 1962. Image: in a private collection, by courtesy of the owner.
He also responded in his paintings to his urban home environment, surrounded as he was in Bingley by houses and industry. He told the Bingley Courier:
In my paintings I have consciously exploited great distances in depth. I suppose in a way this is a way of trying to break free from the restrictions of my own limiting environment.
‘Sandalwood Bay’, 1964. Image: in a private collection, by courtesy of the owner.
Henry’s artwork was exhibited regionally and in 1976 he had a solo exhibition of paintings depicting the River Aire from its source at Malham to his home town of Bingley. He told the Bingley Courier that his purpose had been to record as faithfully as he could through his own eyes, the sights most typical of the Aire valley and features that best illustrated its qualities and character.
He died in 2000.