Edwin Holgate was a significant figure in the development of Canadian modernism. He was a founder of Montreal’s Beaver Hall Group, later invited to become the eighth member of the Group of Seven, and was an influential teacher at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal. Though based in the city and renowned for portraiture, Holgate had a strong affinity for the Laurentian and Charlevoix landscape. Along with A.Y. Jackson, whom he had served with in the First World War, Holgate would often explore the rolling hills of the Quebec countryside on skis.

In 1946, Holgate sold his city studio and moved to Morin Heights in the Laurentians. In the mountain town, Holgate was afforded solitude in nature and deepened his connection to the landscape. Painted in 1947, Spring, Morin Heights is a striking example from Holgate’s later period, capturing the crisp clarity and renewal of early spring. Dennis Reid described Holgate’s small oil sketches of the late forties and fifties as “sure and deft, spontaneous in response, yet resolved…” Here, balancing spontaneity with thoughtful control, Holgate uses a selective and harmonious palette to succinctly convey the freshness and illumination of the day.

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