signed with initials lower left; titled and dated circa 1930 on a gallery label on the reverse
8.75 × 10.5 in (22.2 × 26.7 cm)
Family of the Artist, United Kingdom
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Masterpieces of Canadian Art, Annual Loan Exhibition, Galerie Eric Klinkhoff, Montreal, 4-18 November 2023, no. 32
Dennis Reid, Edwin H. Holgate, Ottawa, 1976, page 22
Edwin Holgate loved the outdoors and was always interested in depicting the wilderness of the Laurentians, a short distance from Montreal, where he was living. He was a good skier and took regular trips to various parts of Quebec, often in the company of A.Y. Jackson. Holgate built a cabin at Lac Tremblant in 1925, but later sold the property to purchase a nine-acre piece of land in Morin Heights, where he would eventually settle with his wife in 1946. Author Dennis Reid describes the artist’s Laurentian paintings as “among the most sensual of his works, they reveal across every inch of their surfaces the long hours of concentration that have brought to them the gentle glow of life.”
This winter Laurentian painting was completed circa 1930, the year before Holgate became known as the eighth member of the Group of Seven and remained a member of the Group until it disbanded in 1933. The artist was reaching the peak of his success. In addition to Group exhibitions in 1930 and 1931, his portrait paintings were included in a major show of contemporary Canadian art organized by the American Federation of Arts that was shown first at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in March 1930, and then travelled to Providence, Baltimore, New York, Minneapolis, and St. Louis. The National Gallery of Canada purchased its second artwork by Holgate, Nude in a Landscape, in 1930, the same year as the Art Gallery of Toronto acquired its large Nude in the Open. Holgate also received a mural commission in 1930 when architect Aristide Beaugrand-Champagne included historical murals in his plans for the chalet on the top of Mount Royal in Montreal. He was among thirteen artists chosen to execute the seventeen paintings and maps to adorn the frieze of the chalet’s grand hall.
