Edwin Headley Holgate 1892 - 1977

Dominion Gallery, Montreal

Private Collection, Ottawa

Montreal, Edwin Holgate: Twenty-Five Years of Painting, Dominion Gallery, 1946

Brian Foss and Rosalind Pepall, Edwin Holgate, Montreal, 2005, p. 25, illustrated fig. 8

The colours of this painting are brilliant. This panel is in very good condition without any apparent issues under UV.
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Although Holgate did not join the Group of Seven until 1930, he was of their generation and well known by them ; he had wholeheartedly espoused the Group's aims and ambitions early on.  Indeed, it was Holgate's affinity with the Group that made him an enthusiastic founder, in 1920, of the Beaver Hall Group of painters in Montreal - the very year the Group was formally constituted in Toronto.

This stunning little masterwork shows that Holgate was a painter of more than ordinary talent. Within the compass of this modest format, he has caught the essence of Laurentian winter life.  The picture is packed with a rich assortment of shapes and colours, despite being a scene that is muffled in snow.

The image was thought to be of such high quality and is resonant of such Canadian symbols and values, that it was made into a silkscreen print by Sampson-Mathews, who gave it, along with other silkscreen prints of works by the Group of Seven, a wide distribution.