This is a fine late winter landscape of a thawing river, probably the Simon River, near Holgate’s home in Morin-Heights. Positioned on a level above the river, Holgate painted the composition of the river and snowfields looking toward the pines beyond and distant hills with their receding late winter or early spring snow.

Holgate painted the scene with economical and vigorous brushwork and a restrained palette of whites, blue-grays, muted purples, and olive greens, developing a satisfying landscape true to the tradition and the spirit of Canadian landscape painting of which he was a pioneer.

This is characteristic of the quality of painting my late father Walter Klinkhoff purchased from “Edwin” when the artist would permit it. As my father wrote,

“I visited the Holgates frequently at Morin-Heights where he had built a fine house on a site selected for him by 'Jackrabbit' Johannsen, who also became his contractor and of whom he painted a famous portrait, now in the Montreal Museum. I purchased as many paintings from him as I could, which was usually not easy because he really did not like parting with any and did not need the money.”

Walter and Trudy Klinkhoff were pleased to consider Frances and Edwin Holgate among their friends. Frances, widowed, did consult with Walter Klinkhoff and offered numerous Holgate works of art through the gallery.

Edwin Holgate’s first public exhibition took place at the Arts Club of Montreal in 1922, and he mounted a solo show at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1933. He taught wood engraving at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal from 1928 to 1934, and with Lilias Torrance Newton he directed museum art classes in two periods, 1934–1936 and 1938–1940. A central figure in Montreal’s interwar scene, Holgate was instrumental in the founding of the Beaver Hall Group (from 1920) and was invited to join the Group of Seven in 1929, exhibiting with them in 1930–1931; he was also a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters. Holgate was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1934, became a full member in 1935, resigned in 1945 and was reinstated in 1953. During the Second World War he served as an official Canadian war artist with the Royal Canadian Air Force in England; after the war he relocated to the Laurentians in 1946 amid significant shifts in Montreal’s art scene. In 1954 Holgate was one of eighteen Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint a Park car mural, his subject being Mont-Tremblant National Park. The last years of his life they returned to the city, living in Westmount, Quebec, where access to health care was easier for them in their advancing ages. He died in Montreal in 1977.