Derek Holland was born in Chesterfield in 1927. He trained at the Central School in London, where he later taught. In the 1960s he exhibited his large colourful paintings regularly at the Redfern Gallery in London alongside the avant-garde of European painting but a journey to France in 1974 proved a watershed in his career.

In France he began to make drawings of the rural towns and villages; back in the studio these became the starting point for canvases and works on paper. Gradually, as the paintings have become more gestural and the colours more intensely high-key, his mature style has developed; the increasingly restless brush marks blending into a poetic harmony.

Exhibitions include: London Group; Young Contemporaries (prize winner); Leicester Galleries, London; Redfern Gallery, London; New British Art, Monte Carlo; Plymouth City Art Gallery; New Street Gallery, Plymouth; Plymouth Arts Centre; Newlyn Society of Artists. Public collections include: Regional Development Agency, Government Office for the South West and Plymouth City Art Gallery and Museum.