About Us

History & Background

Holmes Fine Art www.holmesfineart.com originated 1980 in San Jose, California originally as Holmes & Associates, a business comprised by founder Meryle Karloff-Holmes, and other art professionals whose function was to serve as art-media advisors and consultants to private and public companies, developers, architects, designers, and individual collectors.

In 1993, Ms. Karloff-Holmes and her husband, Roy Holmes, who has always been supportive of Holmes Fine Art while he was active in sales & marketing in the high technology sector, established the Holmes Fine Art Gallery as a retail business in downtown San Jose, serving the people of San Jose and Santa Clara County.

Together they recognized that being in Silicon Valley, which is the capital of technology has some of the greatest minds and resources in the world. It seemed logical to create an Institute that would be a resource to the technical world, and inversely, technology would be a resource for the art world. One of the greatest needs in technology of the 90's was to enable artists as content providers. Yet, artists did not have adequate access to the tools of technology.

This paradox had been resolved via Art Tech: The Silicon Valley Institute of Art & Technology www.art-tech.org becoming a leading resource for artists developing technical applications in multi-media, education, entertainment, and professional and consumer areas.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         Early 1970's Ms. Karloff Holmes started art marketing on the East Coast as a practicing artist. Her clients in New York City included Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, B.Altman and Macy's.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         June 1974, Roy Holmes and Meryle meet in NYC. She became artist-collaborator with Roy as Marketing Director for The Museum of Holography. Under Mr. Holmes direction, they created the first international exhibition of holography at the International Center for Photography, New York.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1975, Ms. Karloff-Holmes became resident artist and holographer for Roy Holmes' company, Holocom Industries in Westport, CT. She designed the first holographic commercial displays for clients such as RJ Reynolds and Wm. Este Advertising.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         July 4, 1975, with the Museum of Holography, they created a holographic spectacular event for NYC at Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty for over 500,000 spectators.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1979, Holmes & Karloff married and moved to Santa Clara, California for Roy as Marketing Director for Orrox, a leading Broadcast editing technology.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1980 Ms. Karloff-Holmes founded Holmes Fine Art.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1986, the American Red Cross of Greater New York hired the Holmes' to liquidate their AAA print collection, bringing the Holmes' back to New York as bi-coastal residents. After being successful with re-introducing the collection and moving the inventory they explored the broadcast industry as a more effective way to market art.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1987, together they created and executive produced, "The Art Market Report", a national & international weekly television art magazine, which ran for three years as a flagship program for FNN (CNBC) cable and PBS broadcasts.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1993 in San Jose, California, the Holmes opened Holmes Fine Art, a brick and mortar 12,000 sq.ft. gallery downtown, later to develop into Art-Tech: Silicon Valley Institute of Art & Technology, a pioneering new-media non-profit organization.

SPAN style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'">         1999 Art-Tech relocated to Holmes Ranch in San Jose East Hills, only 20 minutes from downtown and the airport. On 20 acres overlooking panoramic views of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay.

Roy Bentley Holmes

Holmes Fine Art: Partner (1980-present)
Native of Marinette, Wisconsin
BS. University of Wisconsin

A successful background in sales and marketing in the high technology sector, as an executive with Fortune 500 companies, and as an entrepreneur, Mr. Holmes continues to explore opportunities of combining technology with art, including his quest of the art in technology. He has been an active business partner with wife Ms. Karloff Holmes for over 20 years including co-founding the Museum of Holography in New York City, and has been active in innovative art programming, pioneering FM radio and TV broadcasts, art sales and collecting, as well as co-founding Art-Tech and Come-inc. 

Meryle Karloff Holmes

Holmes Fine Art: Founder / Partner (1980-present)
Native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
M.F.A., B.F.A., Maryland Institute of Art.
Studies at Cheltenham Art Center, Philadelphia College of Art, Tyler School of Art/Temple University, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, and New York School of Holography. Founding member of the Museum of Holography. Continuing Graduate studies in Arts Administration, Art and the Public Sector, San Jose State University.

For thirty years, Ms Holmes has been an artist, entrepreneur, art dealer, gallery owner, consultant and collector. Trained as a sculptor, painter, and holographer paving her path into new media.

Ms. Karloff-Holmes created, organized, curated and marketed art exhibitions in public and private environments, collaborating with established and recognized curators and non-profit organizations.

In 2004, the Holmes' re-launched Meryle's original 1970's erotic artex therapy game ome/STRONG> www.come-inc.com and new line of holistic and artistic erotica.