Arts

Gilbert Holiday was an English artist who fell in love with a Guernsey girl and then the island itself, which came through in his work.

He is known for his evocative paintings of Guernsey scenes and in particular the life of the island's heavy horses. Outside the islands it is his military and equestrian pictures that hold the limelight.

Holiday's grand-daughter, Janet Westcott, still lives in Guernsey and is the custodian of a huge collection of his work ranging from simple sketches on the back of a menu to finished works of art.

One of his First World War sketches

Gilbert Holiday was a compulsive sketcher and when he spent in France during the First World War he accumulated hundreds of drawings and Janet has been lovingly identifying and sorting them.

Seldom seen without a pencil in his hand and his pockets stuffed with scraps of paper he left an amazing record of a long gone world. Sketched with economy in a few lines on the back of any blank sheet he could find are horses, friends, soldiers, more horses, and even more horses.

The works above are reproduced thanks to the kind permission of Janet Westcott.