(b Allandale, Ont., 19 Aug 1892; d Montreal, 21 May 1977). Canadian painter and woodcutter. He studied under William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal and in 1912 went to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. After serving in the Canadian army during World War I he returned to Paris, continuing his studies at the Académie Colarossi (1921–2) under Adolph Milman, from whom he gained a dedication to meticulous craftsmanship that persisted throughout his career. He then returned to Montreal, where he taught wood-engraving at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and exhibited with the Beaver Hall Hill Group. His first recognition came in the mid-1920s with his woodcuts (e.g. The Blacksmith, 1928; Ottawa, N.G.). In 1926 Holgate accompanied A. Y. Jackson on a trip to British Columbia, sketching totem poles and Indian villages. He pursued his interest in West Coast native art in a commission to decorate a room at the Château Laurier Hotel, Ottawa: the Totem Pole Room (1929; destr., see Reid, fig. 3) featured totem-pole pillars and mountain-landscape murals. In 1931 Holgate became the eighth member of the GROUP OF SEVEN and with its dissolution in 1933 became a founder-member of its successor, the Canadian Group of Painters. Many of his most successful pictures were painted in the 1930s and 1940s in a figurative style that, although continuously refined, remained little changed. He is best known for his series of monumental nudes in landscape settings, begun in the 1930s. In Nude (1930; Toronto, A.G. Ont.; see CANADA, fig. 4), Holgate juxtaposed the fleshy, soft figure with the rocky lakeshore, while giving both the same treatment to create a uniform calm, controlled mood. His portraits (e.g. Ludovine, c. 1930; Ottawa, N.G.) are mostly close-up head and shoulder views and impress the viewer through their simplicity and directness. Holgate served as an Official War Artist in 1943–4 and on his return to Canada moved to the Laurentians to paint the local landscape (e.g. Laurentian Cemetery, 1949; Montreal, Mus. F.A.).

• Holgate, Edwin H(eadley)
  • Canada, §III, 2: Painting and graphic arts, 1867–1938
  • Group of Seven
  • Montreal, §2: Art life and organization