Landscape painter and poet, born in London, who trained at Hornsey College of Art, 1961–4, then St Martin’s School of Art, 1964–5. Holmes moved with his family to a remote shepherd’s cottage in Snowdonia National Park in 1970 – Capel Celyn, Frongoch, near Bala, Gwynedd – to live “in what most people would consider abject poverty”. Initially, there was no telephone or electricity, no running water or gas, and the cottage was two miles from the nearest road. The wild, wet landscape became Holmes’ subject. He published several volumes of verse, poems appearing in the Anglo-Welsh Review, Poetry Wales, Poetry Review, London Magazine, Outposts and elsewhere. Holmes gained a WAC Award for Painting, in 1978, also a commendation in WAC Award for Literature (Poetry) and a New Poetry Prize.