Larry Holmes received both the Bachelor of Fine Arts and the Master of Science degrees from Kansas State College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University). He earned the Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI in 1973 and later that year joined the faculty at the University of Delaware. In 1982 he was appointed as Chair of the Department of Art and held that position until 1992 when he returned to full time teaching. Later he headed the undergraduate and graduate painting programs and founded the department’s study abroad program in Florence, Italy. The College of Arts and Sciences presented Holmes with its award for Outstanding Teacher of the year in 2003. At the time of his retirement in 2004 the University honored him with a forty-year retrospective exhibition of his work and subsequently named him as Professor Emeritus of Art.

Among the more than thirty solo exhibitions of his paintings are those at the Jack Meier Gallery in Houston, TX, The Littlejohn/Sternau and Littlejohn/Smith Galleries in New York City, the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, the Greenville Museum of Art in North Carolina, the Delaware Contemporary Museum also in Wilmington, the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts in New Castle, PA, the Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia, the Osuna Gallery in Washington, DC and most recently in June of 2020 at The Delaplaine Arts Center in Frederick, MD. The many group shows in which his work has been featured include Drawing in Color at Mangle Gallery in Philadelphia, Dream Streets at the Delaware Art Museum, The Painted Menagerie at Sherry French in New York City, Pastels—Big and Otherwise at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina, Pattern and Decoration at Morehead State University, A Twentieth Century Bestiary at Renee Fotouhi Fine Art in New York City, The Nature of the Beast at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY, and the Twelfth National Drawing Invitational at Emporia State University.

Over the years his work has been added to a number of public, corporate and private collections including those of The Delaware Art Museum, The University of Delaware Museums, The Fremantle Foundation in Fiesole, Italy, Wilmington Trust Corporation, The Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, St. Lawrence University, McDonald’s Corporation, the cities of Parsons, KS and Newark, DE, the law firm of Akin, Gump, and Strauss in Washington, DC, and the Guilford County Fire Commission in Greensboro, NC.

A few of the publications which have dealt with his work are the catalogues from the exhibitions “Dreams Streets” from the Delaware Art Museum, “Pastels—Big and Otherwise” from the Asheville Art Museum, and “Larry Holmes—Forty Years of Painting” from the University of Delaware Museums. Periodical publications include The New Art Examiner, Art News Magazine, Arts Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine, Resident Magazine, The Cranbrook Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Asheville Citizen-Times, The Gainesville Sun, The News Journal of Wilmington, and a variety of museum and art organization newsletters.