Holly Hope Banks was born in Columbus, Ohio.  At the University of Toledo, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1981.   She was a registered copyist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for 5 years.  She worked briefly under Daniel Greene in New York. Holly continued her classical training at the Atelier of Plein-air Studies for 4 years and then furthered her studies by extensive travels to Europe.

Her work has been featured in numerous national juried exhibitions including appearances at the National Arts Club in New York and the Salmagundi Club in New York., and has won many major awards. Her work has also been included in exhibitions in 2017, 2016, 2011, 2010, 2001, and 2000 at the Butler Institute of American Art.  In 2011, the Butler museum purchased her pastel, “Artist’s Mother’ for their permanent collection.  Most recently she has been a featured artist at the AKC Museum of the Dog in NYC. As of January 2022, the AKC Dog Museum is selling prints of her painting, ‘Heroes of 9/11’.

In 1996, Holly was one of six American artists for cultural exchange with the Union of Russian Artists.  They were the first group of American artists to be officially invited to Russia.  Her work was featured in a joint American/Russian show in Kolomna and Moscow, Russia.   In 1998, she was named as one of ten prominent emerging artists with an article in American Artist magazine and wrote an article, ‘An Artistic Imagination’, which was published in the same magazine in the October 2001 issue.  Her portrait of ‘Ms. Ramona Tumblin’ was included in the ‘Best of Portrait painting’, North Light Books, 1998.   She was also featured in the February 2015 issue of Plein Air Magazine for her award-winning piece, titled ‘Michael”. She is listed in numerous reference books including Who’s Who in American Art, Who’s Who of American Women, and Who’s Who in the World.

Holly specializes in realist academic art of all genres, including equestrian/animal, portrait/figurative, still life,  and landscape. Her work is in private collections across the country and abroad.  Her board room portraits are in various institutions. She lives with her artist husband and works out of her studio in Florida.