Lot 190: Edwin Headley Holgate 1892 - 1977 Canadian oil on board Winter

Edwin Headley Holgate 1892 - 1977 Canadian oil on board Winter
8 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches 21.6 x 26.7 centimeters initialed and on verso signed, titled and dated 1953
Provenance:The Art Emporium, Vancouver
Private Collection, Toronto
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario Edwin Holgate was a founding member of Montreal's Beaver Hall Group, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art and the Canadian Group of Painters. In 1929 he became the eighth member of the Group of Seven, sharing their allegiance to landscape, but distinguishing his individuality with his fine figurative work, particularly his sensual outdoor nudes. The scenery of the Laurentians was very magnetic for Holgate, and by the mid-1920s he had built a sketching shack at Lake Tremblant in the mountains. Returning to Montreal in 1943 after his time as an official war artist, Holgate did not feel in tune with the explosion of abstraction taking place there at that time, and in 1946 he moved to Morin Heights in the Laurentians. There, surrounded by nature, he continued his commitment to landscape painting for 27 years.
Embodying the freshness and immediacy of its execution outdoors, Winter is a superb example of Holgate's communion with the beauty of winter, with its contrasts of blue-shadowed and sunlit snow. One feels the moment of Holgate pausing, compelled to paint by the peaceful beauty of this scene.