{{Short description|Canadian artist (1892–1977)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}} {{Infobox artist | name = Edwin Holgate | image = Edwin Holgate.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Edwin Holgate, 1930 | birth_name = Edwin Headley Holgate | birth_date = {{birth date|1892|08|19}} | birth_place = Allandale, Ontario, Canada | death_date = {{death date and age|1977|05|21|1892|08|19}} | death_place = Montreal, Quebec, Canada | nationality = | known_for = painter and engraver | spouse = Mary Frances Rittenhouse (m. 1920) | training = | movement = | notable_works = | patrons = | awards = Art Association of Montreal's Jessie Dow Prize (1938) }} '''Edwin Headley Holgate''' {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|RCA|size=100%}} (August 19, 1892 – May 21, 1977), was a Canadian painter, muralist, and printmaker. Holgate played a major role in Montreal's art community, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he both studied and taught. He was known primarily as a portraitist and for his treatment of the female nude in an outdoor setting in a series of paintings and prints during the 1930s.

== Life and career == thumbnail|left|Edwin Holgate painting in his workshop, Montreal, 1940 Holgate was born in Allandale, Ontario, Canada, the son of Bessie Bell (Headley) and Henry Holgate.<ref>{{cite web |title=Edwin Holgate |url=http://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=9205&type=pge |website=patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/ |publisher=Government of Quebec |access-date=May 6, 2021}}</ref> Holgate's family moved to Jamaica in 1895 where his father worked as an engineer. In 1897, he was sent to Toronto to go to school. In 1901, his family returned from Jamaica and settled in Montreal.

Holgate studied at the Art Association of Montreal with Alberta Cleland (beginning in 1905),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://beaverhallgroup.weebly.com/edwin-holgate.html |title=Edwin Headley Holgate |work=The Beaver Hall Group Canada's other Group of Seven |publisher=Gibbs Appraisals Ltd |access-date=June 1, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304142241/http://beaverhallgroup.weebly.com/edwin-holgate.html |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> William Brymner (who also taught A. Y. Jackson), and later Maurice Cullen.<ref name="pepall " >{{cite web |last1=Pepall |first1=Rosalind |title='An Art of Vigour and Restraint". Edwin Holgate |date=2005 |website=librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts |others=Rosalind Pepall, Brian Foss |location=Montreal|url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Edwin%20Holgate.%20Rosalind%20Pepall,%20Brian%20Foss.%20Montreal:%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=2021-05-07}}</ref> From 1912 until 1923, he exhibited in the annual Spring Exhibitions almost every year. From 1912 to 1914, he studied in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière but found it disappointing.<ref name="pepall " /> He was travelling in Ukraine at the outset of World War I, and was forced to cross Asia to return to Canada. He enlisted in 1916<ref name="pepall " /> and returned to France with the Canadian Army.<ref name=ngc >{{cite web |url=http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/enthusiast/thirties/artist_e.jsp?iartistid=2482 |title=Edwin Holgate |website=cybermuse.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=June 1, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025093001/http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/enthusiast/thirties/artist_e.jsp?iartistid=2482 |archive-date=October 25, 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

Holgate's first exhibition was held at the Arts Club of Montreal in 1922. In 1933, he had a solo exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.<ref name="cogeval " >{{cite book |last1=Cogeval |first1=Guy |title='Director's Foreword". Edwin Holgate |date=2005 |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts |others=Rosalind Pepall, Brian Foss |location=Montreal |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Edwin%20Holgate.%20Rosalind%20Pepall,%20Brian%20Foss.%20Montreal:%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |page=8 |access-date=May 6, 2021}}</ref> He taught wood engraving at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal from 1928 to 1934, then with Lilias Torrance Newton directed art classes at the museum from 1934 to 1936 and again, from 1938 to 1940.<ref name="cogeval " />

Holgate was said by A. Y. Jackson to be the instigator of the Beaver Hall Group, of which he was a member, in 1920.<ref name="foss " >{{cite web |last1=Foss |first1=Brian |title="Living Landscape". Edwin Holgate |date=2005 |website=librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts |others=Rosalind Pepall, Brian Foss |location=Montreal |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Edwin%20Holgate.%20Rosalind%20Pepall,%20Brian%20Foss.%20Montreal:%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=May 8, 2021}}</ref> He was the eighth<ref name="foss " /> member of the Group of Seven &mdash; he was invited to join the group in March 1929 and showed with it in 1930 and 1931.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Silcox |first1=David P. |title=The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson |date=2011 |publisher=Firefly Books Ltd. |isbn=978-1-55407-154-8 |page=47}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/servlet/imageserver?src=DO93-1000&ext=x.pdf |title=Charles Hill Interview With Edwin Holgate |last=Hill |first=Charles |date=September 20, 1973 |website=cybermuse.gallery.ca |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=April 17, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180418031943/http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/servlet/imageserver?src=DO93-1000&ext=x.pdf |archive-date=April 18, 2018 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1934, he was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He was elected a full member in 1935. He resigned in 1945 but was reinstated in 1953.<ref name=RCA1880 >{{cite web |title=Members since 1880 |url=http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |website=rca-arc.ca |publisher=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts |access-date=September 11, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110526215339/http://www.rca-arc.ca/en/about_members/since1880.asp |archive-date=May 26, 2011 }}</ref> He was also a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters.<ref name="Bradfield " >{{cite book |last1=Bradfield |first1=Helen |title=Art Gallery of Ontario: the Canadian Collection |date=1970 |publisher=McGraw Hill |location=Toronto |isbn=0070925046 |url=https://search.library.utoronto.ca/search?N=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nu=p_work_normalized&Np=1&Ntt=Helen%20Bradfield%2C%20canadian%20collection%20%2C%20art%20gallery%20of%20ontario&Ntk=Anywhere |access-date=July 7, 2020 |archive-date=June 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200607002632/https://search.library.utoronto.ca/search?N=0&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Nu=p_work_normalized&Np=1&Ntt=Helen%20Bradfield,%20canadian%20collection%20,%20art%20gallery%20of%20ontario&Ntk=Anywhere |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Holgate worked as an official Canadian war artist with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England during World War II. On his return to Montreal after the war, he found that the arts scene had changed, with the arrival of the Automatistes. He left Montreal to live in the Laurentians in 1946.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://sobeyartfoundation.com/en/crombie-collection/the-group-of-seven/edwin-holgate/ |title=Edwin Holgate |website=sobeyartfoundation.com |publisher=The Sobey Art Foundation |language=en-US |access-date=January 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180122073008/http://sobeyartfoundation.com/en/crombie-collection/the-group-of-seven/edwin-holgate/ |archive-date=January 22, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1954, he was one of 18 Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint a mural for the interior of one of the new Park cars entering service on the new ''Canadian'' transcontinental train. Each the murals depicted a different national or provincial park; Holgate's was Mont-Tremblant National Park.<ref name="cr2004 " >{{cite journal |url=http://www.exporail.org/can_rail/Canadian%20Rail_no503_2004.pdf |title=The 50th Anniversary of the CPR Stainless Steel Passenger Fleet |journal=Canadian Rail |date=November–December 2004 |issue=503 |pages=211–223 |access-date=February 7, 2015 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924005431/http://www.exporail.org/can_rail/Canadian%20Rail_no503_2004.pdf | archive-date=September 24, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Holgate died in 1977 and was buried at Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://thegroupofseven.ca/edwin-holgate/ |title=Group of Seven |website=thegroupofseven.ca |publisher=The Group of Seven |access-date=July 20, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190720012156/https://thegroupofseven.ca/edwin-holgate/ |archive-date=July 20, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The National Gallery of Canada held a retrospective of his work which travelled across Canada in 1975.<ref name="pepall " /> The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts organized a second retrospective in 2005, curated by Rosalind Pepall and Brian Foss.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Lifeworks: A late modernist |last=Sibbald |first=Barbara |journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal |date=August 16, 2005 |volume=173 |issue=4 |pages=393–394 |doi=10.1503/cmaj.050924 |pmc=1188229 }}</ref> In 2024, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston displayed his prints in ''Edwin Holgate as Printmaker''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Edwin Holgate as Printmaker {{!}} Museum of Fine Arts Boston |url=https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/edwin-holgate-as-printmaker |access-date=2025-07-04 |website=www.mfa.org |language=en}}</ref>

==Notes== {{reflist|30em}}

=== Bibliography === * Harper, Russell. ''Painting in Canada: A History 2nd ed.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981. {{ISBN|0-8020-6307-1}} * {{cite web |last1=Pepall |first1=Rosalind |last2=Foss|first2=Brian|title= Edwin Holgate |date=2005 |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts|location=Montreal|url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Edwin%20Holgate.%20Rosalind%20Pepall,%20Brian%20Foss.%20Montreal:%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=2021-05-08}} * Reid, Dennis ''A Concise History of Canadian Painting'' 2nd Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1988. {{ISBN|0-19-540663-X}}.

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20050627000843/http://www.mmfa.qc.ca/en/expositions/exposition_97.html Holgate Retrospective at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art] {{Commons category|Edwin Holgate}} * [https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/edwin-holgate Profile] at the National Gallery of Canada

{{Group of Seven}} {{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holgate, Edwin}} Category:1892 births Category:1977 deaths Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:Anglophone Quebec people Category:Canadian male painters Category:Group of Seven (artists) Category:Artists from Simcoe County Category:Artists from Ontario Category:Artists from Montreal Category:Canadian portrait painters Category:Canadian Impressionist painters Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Category:Burials at Mount Royal Cemetery Category:20th-century Canadian male artists Category:Canadian Post-impressionist painters Category:Canadian Group of Painters