McGillivray specialized as a landscape painter.
She had a brilliant and unusual handling of brushwork that created unique compositions.

She was one of the first women artists to explore the landscape of northern Ontario and Quebec.
She was part of the small group of artists that liked the romantic-realist view of the railway artists and the heroic view of the landscape in the 1890s that characterized the work of the Group of Seven and their adherents following the Great War.

Throughout her life, she travelled across Canada, and to the United States, Jamaica, Trinidad, the Bahamas and Europe, as well as France, England and Italy, looking for new and challenging landscapes to paint.

In 1913, while in Paris, McGillvray had her painting Contentment (1913) exhibited at the Salon des Beaux Arts in Paris, the first great achievement on her career.
In the same year, she was also said to have been elected president of the International Art Union.

McGillivray moved back to Canada in 1914.
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 at Frank Street. [
iv] Her work from this period is rich in colour and texture, reflecting the Post Impressionist work she had encountered in Europe. [
v]
She had a method of rendering forms in massed areas of colour applied in places with the palette knife and strong black lines around forms, a style seldom seen in Canada before her work.
This technique was sympathetic to Tom Thomson, who admired her and said of her, "she is one of the best".

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).
McGillivray specialized as a landscape painter. She had a brilliant and unusual handling of brushwork that created unique compositions. 
She was one of the first women artists to explore the landscape of northern Ontario and Quebec. She was part of the small group of artists that liked the romantic-realist view of the railway artists and the heroic view of the landscape in the 1890s that characterized the work of the Group of Seven and their adherents following the Great War.
Throughout her life, she travelled across Canada, and to the United States, Jamaica, Trinidad, the Bahamas and Europe, as well as France, England and Italy, looking for new and challenging landscapes to paint.
In 1913, while in Paris, McGillvray had her painting Contentment (1913) exhibited at the Salon des Beaux Arts in Paris, the first great achievement on her career. In the same year, she was also said to have been elected president of the International Art Union.
McGillivray moved back to Canada in 1914. 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 at Frank Street. [iv] Her work from this period is rich in colour and texture, reflecting the Post Impressionist work she had encountered in Europe. [v]
She had a method of rendering forms in massed areas of colour applied in places with the palette knife and strong black lines around forms, a style seldom seen in Canada before her work. This technique was sympathetic to Tom Thomson, who admired her and said of her, "she is one of the best".
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).
Florence Helena McGillivray