Lilian Holt was born in 1898 in London. She studied at the Putney Art School from 1913 to 1914, before serving in the Women’s Land Army during the First World War, afterwards working for the Prudential Assurance Company, while taking art classes at Regent Street Polytechnic. In 1923 she married her first husband, Jacob Mendelson, an art and antiques dealer - although Holt was not painting at this time she was handling works by numerous artists including David Bomberg, Jacob Epstein, Jacob Kramer and Walter Sickert. In 1928, she renewed her friendship with Bomberg, whom she had first met in 1923 and divorced Mendelson later the same year.
For the next decade or so, Holt supported Bomberg's career and in 1940 they married. She began painting again, and she became member of the Borough Group (1948-52). In 1954, they moved to Spain and Holt refined her ability to critically assess and inform art production enabling her to think and paint as both an artist and a gallerist.
In March 2025 Brooke-Walder Gallery held the first retrospective of Lilian Holt's work in her own name coming out of the shadow of her husband.
