 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.