Although her career spanned only 15 years, Helen McNicoll brought visibility to both Impressionism and female artists in Canada at the turn of the 19th century. McNicoll studied in England, where she met her lifelong companion Dorothea Sharp, also an impressionist painter. Her paintings are characterized by moments of stillness and calm in a ever-growing urban world. She began exhibiting regularly and saw critical acclaim even before her death in 1915, at age 35.