Emily Carr in London

EmilyCarr_KitwancoolVillage

British Columbia’s own beloved artist Emily Carr (1871-1945) is well known in Canada but not so much in England. Now a large body of her work is on exhibition there for the first time, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

Our Vancouver Art Gallery has a large collection of her work, some of which is in the London exhibition along with collections from other Canadian institutions. They have a website on Emily with link to a timeline and images of her work:

Emily Carr, born in Victoria, British Columbia, is one of Canada’s most renowned artists, significant as a landscape painter and a modernist. The most important BC artist of her generation, she is best known for her attention to the totemic carvings of the First Nations people of British Columbia and the rain forests of Vancouver Island.

I have been very fortunate in seeing so much of her work here and in Victoria. The Vancouver Art Gallery always has some of her work on display for the pleasure of revisits, sometimes along with a contemporary artist with the aim of provoking discussion about differences and similarities in approach or spirit. I love most her late period works of our magestic trees painted in a free expressionist fashion.

A Guardian review of the Dulwich exhibit calls Emily Carr Canada’s very own Van Gogh. Some images to be enjoyed here as well.

This 2006 review in the Vancouver Sun might also be of interest.

I am now recalling a superb exhibition in 2002 called Carr, O’Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own accompanied by a wonderful book by Sharyn Rohlfsen Udall which I recommend highly, if it is still available and you are interested.

Above image: Emily Carr: Corner of Kitwancool Village, c. 1930 – Oil on Canvas
© McMichael Canadian Art Collection, scanned from a card

Later: just found this in today’s Vancouver Sun newspaper

November 3, 2014 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists by Marja-Leena