Florence Helena McGillivray

[4] In 1870, the family moved to Inverlynn, a house located at 1300 Gifford Street in Whitby, Ontario.

The children attended a grammar school in Whitby, and since McGillivray had shown artistic talent in her early years, she attended the Central Ontario School of Art (now the Ontario College of Art) in Toronto, where she studied with William Cruikshank.

[9][6] In 1912, she went to France to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière with Lucien Simon and Émile-René Ménard (1862–1930).

The most prolific and vibrant phase of her artistic career occurred during the 1920s while she lived in Ottawa, where she set up a studio on Frank Street.

[14] Three of her paintings are part of the National Gallery of Canada collection, Midwinter, Dunbarton, Ontario (1918), Afterglow (1914), and St. Anthony Harbour, Newfoundland, (1926).

She joined the Women's Art Association of Canada where she studied painting on china with Mary Dignam, its founding president.

[12] She continued her study of painting on china with Marshall Fry in New York in 1898 and sold her pieces later from her studio in Whitby.

[21] Shown at the Royal Canadian Academy show that year, it was pronounced "capital" by a reviewer in the Montreal Gazette, November 19, 1937.

Florence Helena McGillivray, 1907
Afterglow , c. 1914, Florence H. McGillivray Canadian, 1864 - 1938 oil on paperboard 42 x 57.5 cm. National Gallery of Canada (no. 1041)
Contentment, c. 1913. Florence H. McGillivray Canadian, 1864 - 1938 oil on cardboard 41 x 32.7 cm Art Gallery of Ontario
Midwinter, Dunbarton, Ontario, 1918 Florence H. McGillivray Canadian, 1864 - 1938, Watercolour over graphite on illustration board 40.2 x 50.6 cm, Purchased 1918 National Gallery of Canada (no. 1490)
St. Anthony Harbour, Newfoundland, Florence H. McGillivray Canadian, 1864 - 1938 oil on canvas 46.7 x 61.6 cm Purchased 1926 National Gallery of Canada (no. 3352)