E is for Emily

Week E | Thursday | A Canadian visionary

Emily Carr (1871–1945) is now one of Canada’s most famed and treasured artists, with schools, the University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and a planet named for her.

As is so/too often the case, this wasn’t her experience during most of her lifetime, though she did receive some acclaim.

She was born, and died, in Victoria, British Columbia, and her art was inspired by the landscapes, moods, and First Nations communities and cultures of that Pacific Northwest region.

I find the ‘curliness’ and movement in her paintings to be remarkable and utterly hers.

Though there is sometimes a Van Gogh quality there, for me.

She spent time in Paris and Brittany – after picking up a crosspatch parrot in Liverpool – and there’s a lovely piece about that here.

Though I admire a number of the ‘Group of Seven’ Canadian painters, their ‘adopted artist’ Carr captures the feel of Canada like no other in my opinion. Though Vancouver Island was a colony of Great Britain (Victoria retaining that British feel today), and Carr studied in Britain, she moved far beyond that. She was given the Indigenous name Klee Wyck, and was an early environmentalist.

Her iconic and powerful painting Big Raven is, of course, my favourite, though I love her dripping trees and dancing skies above all else.

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