Totem Poles No. 2, 1927
Wood engraving
8 1/4 x 7 1/2 in
21 x 19 cm
21 x 19 cm
This painting is presently on view at our Montreal gallery
$6,500
Inscriptions
numbered, ‘No. 4’ (lower left); signed in pencil, ‘E. Holgate’ (lower right)Provenance
Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal
Private collection, Westmount, Quebec
By descent to the present private collection, Westmount, Quebec
A proof of this image was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Toronto Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, 1927; the Canadian National Exhibition International Graphic Art, 1927; the National Gallery of Canada Annual Exhibition of Canadian Art, 1927; and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria exhibition The Canadian Block Print, 1978.
We continue with Edwin Holgate and another aspect of his artistic career, that of print making. The important study, Edwin Holgate, overseen by Chief Curator Rosalind Pepall and Guest Curator Brain Foss under the auspices of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2005, uncovered a journal which shows an early interest in print making. Pepall cites from his journal of a cycling trip from April to mid June of 1913 through France, Switzerland and Italy where she uncovered his particular interest in etchings; “... he comments that Whistler’s etchings are among the best things he saw at Venice’s Gallery of Modern Art” (Chief Curator Rosalind Pepall and Guest Curator Brian Foss, Edwin Holgate, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2005, p 14). Notably, Holgate was a late addition to the iconic Group of Seven. Complementing his painting in oils, he taught wood engraving at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (1926–1935) where his influence in graphic techniques was upon a generation of Canadian artists.
It would be a disservice to improve on the description and cataloguing of Totems No 2 in Patricia Ainslie’s Images of the Land Canadian Block Prints 1919-1945, (Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 1984) where she addresses Holgate’s interest in the medium and precisely his Totem Poles No. 2, the print we are offering here. The woodblock is reproduced on page 62. We are guilty here of some cut and paste and refer collectors and students of the medium to her seminal study of the period in the form of woodblocks.
“...In the late summer of 1926 Holgate and Jackson accompanied Marius Barbeau to the Skeena River, a remote area in northwestern British Columbia. Holgate spent about six weeks there travelling amongst the villages of the Gitksan group of the Tsimshian Indians. He was deeply moved by his experiences there and felt the imminent decline of the local society and culture. He wrote that he ‘felt we were witnessing the rapid decline of a splendid race of creative well-organized people. There persisted a brooding gloom which I found impossible to dispel.’ (Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada Clark Irwin & Co. p 166)
The block prints he produced after this trip have a brooding sense of mystery. They are exceedingly fine works in which there is an almost perfect integration of the forms. The wood engraving Totem Poles, No. 2 (c.1927) is quite enigmatic with the figure and totem poles, though of different size, of equal weight and value. The figure seems as much part of the landscape and at one with nature as the totems. The rich tonal variation in the background and the strong formal structure of the composition is firmly controlled and yet, due to sensitive handling, gives a latent energy and life force.” (Patricia Ainslie’s Images of the Land Canadian Block Prints 1919- 1945, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 1984, p 62)
In 2024 the Boston Fine Arts Museum received a collection of 30 prints by Edwin Holgate. In their announcement of the gift, they wrote “Among the most celebrated works by Canadian artist Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) are his prints. They are brilliant examples of the early 20th-century revival of woodblock printing. Today, Holgate is recognized as one of Canada’s finest printmakers. The imagery in some of his most famous prints also captures what are today regarded as deeply troubling moments in Canada’s history, ones defined by Indigenous erasure and efforts to assimilate First Nations peoples under an umbrella of Canadian nationalism.” (Boston Fine Arts Museum https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/edwin-holgate-as-printmaker)
We continue with Edwin Holgate and another aspect of his artistic career, that of print making. The important study, Edwin Holgate, overseen by Chief Curator Rosalind Pepall and Guest Curator Brain Foss under the auspices of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2005, uncovered a journal which shows an early interest in print making. Pepall cites from his journal of a cycling trip from April to mid June of 1913 through France, Switzerland and Italy where she uncovered his particular interest in etchings; “... he comments that Whistler’s etchings are among the best things he saw at Venice’s Gallery of Modern Art” (Chief Curator Rosalind Pepall and Guest Curator Brian Foss, Edwin Holgate, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2005, p 14). Notably, Holgate was a late addition to the iconic Group of Seven. Complementing his painting in oils, he taught wood engraving at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal (1926–1935) where his influence in graphic techniques was upon a generation of Canadian artists.
It would be a disservice to improve on the description and cataloguing of Totems No 2 in Patricia Ainslie’s Images of the Land Canadian Block Prints 1919-1945, (Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 1984) where she addresses Holgate’s interest in the medium and precisely his Totem Poles No. 2, the print we are offering here. The woodblock is reproduced on page 62. We are guilty here of some cut and paste and refer collectors and students of the medium to her seminal study of the period in the form of woodblocks.
“...In the late summer of 1926 Holgate and Jackson accompanied Marius Barbeau to the Skeena River, a remote area in northwestern British Columbia. Holgate spent about six weeks there travelling amongst the villages of the Gitksan group of the Tsimshian Indians. He was deeply moved by his experiences there and felt the imminent decline of the local society and culture. He wrote that he ‘felt we were witnessing the rapid decline of a splendid race of creative well-organized people. There persisted a brooding gloom which I found impossible to dispel.’ (Naomi Jackson Groves, A.Y.’s Canada Clark Irwin & Co. p 166)
The block prints he produced after this trip have a brooding sense of mystery. They are exceedingly fine works in which there is an almost perfect integration of the forms. The wood engraving Totem Poles, No. 2 (c.1927) is quite enigmatic with the figure and totem poles, though of different size, of equal weight and value. The figure seems as much part of the landscape and at one with nature as the totems. The rich tonal variation in the background and the strong formal structure of the composition is firmly controlled and yet, due to sensitive handling, gives a latent energy and life force.” (Patricia Ainslie’s Images of the Land Canadian Block Prints 1919- 1945, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, 1984, p 62)
In 2024 the Boston Fine Arts Museum received a collection of 30 prints by Edwin Holgate. In their announcement of the gift, they wrote “Among the most celebrated works by Canadian artist Edwin Holgate (1892–1977) are his prints. They are brilliant examples of the early 20th-century revival of woodblock printing. Today, Holgate is recognized as one of Canada’s finest printmakers. The imagery in some of his most famous prints also captures what are today regarded as deeply troubling moments in Canada’s history, ones defined by Indigenous erasure and efforts to assimilate First Nations peoples under an umbrella of Canadian nationalism.” (Boston Fine Arts Museum https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/edwin-holgate-as-printmaker)
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