MONTRÉAL, CANADA.-The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has organized a major retrospective exhibition devoted to Edwin Holgate (1892-1977), a central figure in Montreal’s art community and in the history of Canadian art. Presented through October 2, 2005, Edwin Holgate features an impressive selection of 165 works, brought together for the first time since the artist’s death. They include paintings, drawings, watercolours, prints, book illustrations and archival photographs. After Montreal, the exhibition will travel to four Canadian museums: the Glenbow Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the National Gallery of Canada and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

Although best known for his portraits and studies of the nude figure, Holgate was also admired for his Quebec landscapes: the Laurentians, the Charlevoix area and the remote fishing villages bordering Labrador. In addition, he was a master of wood engraving. The exhibition explores the different aspects of this versatile artist’s production: the early works from his Montreal and Paris training; portraits of his Montreal circle of friends and family; paintings and prints from his trip to the Skeena River, B.C., in 1926; his work as a war artist in both World Wars. It also explores his position in Canadian art as the eighth member of the Group of Seven.

Holgate was born in 1892 in Allandale, Ontario, but by the time he was nine his family had moved to Montreal. He began studying art in his teens at the school of the Art Association of Montreal (now the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). There followed two periods of study in Paris, first from 1912 to 1914 under prominent French artists Lucien Simon and René Ménard and later with Russian-trained artist Adolf Milman from 1920 to 1922. He then returned to Montreal to establish his career as an artist. In the 1920s and 1930s some of Canada’s finest talents in portraiture and figure painting were working in Montreal, and Holgate was at the centre of this circle. He was one of the “elders” of the Beaver Hall group of painters, which included Prudence Heward and Lilias Torrance Newton. Fluent in French, Holgate was introduced to Montreal’s francophone literary and artistic circles through his friendship with Quebec intellectual and writer Jean Chauvin. A respected and popular teacher, Holgate taught at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal from 1926 until 1935, and at the Art Association of Montreal’s school from 1934 to 1936 and 1938 to 1940. His prize pupils included Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean-Paul Lemieux and Stanley Cosgrove. He was at home in both the English- and French-speaking art communities of the city.

Impressed by the revival of wood engraving in Europe, he began making woodblock prints in the early 1920s and has been called a leader of modern Canadian printmaking. This interest led him to create book illustrations for a number of Quebec writers, most notably woodcuts for the English translation of Georges Bouchard’s Vieilles choses, vieilles gens (1928) and for Robert Choquette’s poem Metropolitan Museum (1931). Many of his prints were exhibited at the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, of which he was a founding member.

His association with the Group of Seven began through his friendship with A.Y. Jackson, who in 1926 invited Holgate to accompany him on a month-long trip to the Skeena River in British Columbia. Holgate painted scenes of the Northwest coast landscape, portraits of the Skeena River peoples and views of their villages. The Group of Seven especially admired Holgrte’s portraits and paintings of nude figures, and in 1929 he was invited to join the Group of Seven as their eighth member.

Holgate enlisted in both World Wars and filled his sketchbooks with scenes from the front lines. In World War II he acted as an official war artist for the Canadian government, sketching the daily activities of the pilots and officers at two Royal Canadian Air Force stations in England.

Upon his return to Montreal after the War, Holgate felt less at home in the city’s art circles. He decided to withdraw from the urban bustle and moved to Morin Heights in the Laurentians north of Montreal, where he continued to paint. In the 1960s, as respect for the Group of Seven’s work grew, Holgate was included in the recognition of the Group’s contribution to Canadian art. He died in 1977 at the age of eighty-four.

The well-documented illustrated catalogue of the exhibition represents the first major publication on Edwin Holgate since his death. It includes essays on aspects of the artist’s work that have never been thoroughly explored: for example, the early influences on his career, his war experiences and war art, his contribution as a printmaker, his Quebec landscapes and his ties to the Group of Seven. The catalogue, published in separate English and French editions, includes a complete chronology of the artist’s life, a list of exhibitions and a comprehensive bibliography.

The exhibition has been organized by Rosalind Pepall, Senior Curator of Decorative Arts, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, former Curator of Canadian Art, in collaboration with Brian Foss, Professor of Art History, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University, Montreal. The exhibition design is by Christiane Michaud. The exhibition Edwin Holgate is presented courtesy of the support of Sun Life. It has also benefited from funding from the Volunteer Association of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The Museum wishes to thank La Presse and The Gazette, its media partners. Its gratitude is also extended to Quebec’s Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and to the Museums Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage for their ongoing support.