Who is Emily Carr?

Enlarge

You’ve probably heard of Emily. Maybe you’ve seen some of her paintings on display, stood before Big Raven, lost in its waves of green and purple, taken by the seemingly endless nature of Carr’s strokes.

Enlarge

I’m sure at the very least, her name sounds familiar. She’s one of those Canadian artists who is a permanent fixture in history. Her work is representative of the west coast. Through her travels to First Nations villages such as those near Skeena River, the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii), and Northern Alaska, she painted and captured important landscapes of the past we can learn from now, decades later.

Carr was born in Victoria in 1871. One of six siblings, she struggled against her family’s disapproval towards her pursuit of art. She was steadfast in her goals however, and began her studies at the California School of Design in San Francisco in her late teens. After a few years of study there, she came back to Victoria to work as an art instructor but soon after left to study in England and France. Throughout her career she was influenced by all styles of art, and in the late 20s met Lawren Harris, a prominent member of the Group of Seven. He was a significant influence to her work and they began a lifelong correspondence.

As her health began to decline in the late 30s, she concluded most of her travel and resided in her home town of Victoria where she wrote her influential book Klee Wyck. She died in 1945.

.