- 108
Edwin Headley Holgate 1892 - 1977
Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 CAD
bidding is closed
Description
- Edwin Headley Holgate
- Autumn Leaves
- signed lower left; titled and dated on gallery label
- oil on canvas
- 43.4 by 53.3 cm.
- 17 1/4 by 21 in.
Provenance
Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montréal
Private Collection
Private Collection
Catalogue Note
Although Holgate only became a member of the Group of Seven in 1929, nine years after the Group was formed and four before it disbanded, he shared their ambitions and ideas about the kind of art that Canada needed and deserved. His iconography is similar, in general, with theirs, although only he and Varley ventured boldly into the painting of the female nude.
And like so many artists before and after, he found something particularly alluring in the Canadian autumn, and especially in his favourite stomping ground, the Laurentians just north of Montreal. And that is where this remarkably fine canvas was painted.
This is a highly original composition, not at all unlike Thomson’s Northern River in some respects. The splash of red maple seen across a torrent of fast water and through a screen of trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves, makes a powerful image, and one that sticks in the mind, as many of Holgate’s paintings do. His colours are also distinctly his, and they complement the boldness of the composition with their even tone, which is subtle, so that the drama of the scene is revealed in a stealthy way, its full power being revealed after some study and contemplation.
And like so many artists before and after, he found something particularly alluring in the Canadian autumn, and especially in his favourite stomping ground, the Laurentians just north of Montreal. And that is where this remarkably fine canvas was painted.
This is a highly original composition, not at all unlike Thomson’s Northern River in some respects. The splash of red maple seen across a torrent of fast water and through a screen of trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves, makes a powerful image, and one that sticks in the mind, as many of Holgate’s paintings do. His colours are also distinctly his, and they complement the boldness of the composition with their even tone, which is subtle, so that the drama of the scene is revealed in a stealthy way, its full power being revealed after some study and contemplation.