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Autumn, 1922-23, oil, Arts & Crafts style (1913-27) Glenbow Museum, Calgary.
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One of my favorite artists of the Pacific Northwest, Emily Carr, (Dec. 13, 1871 – Mar. 2, 1945) was also a writer who chronicled the stories of the First Peoples of British Columbia. Carr’s memoir, Klee Wyck, inspired me to travel making a pilgrimage of sorts to the then remote Nootka villages of Tofino and Ucluelet on western Vancouver Island, and later, to the village of K’san on the Skeena River, in the late 1970s, where I promptly got sick and spent a few days camping in the bushes outside of town—to the consternation of my boyfriend, the villagers, and jeweler-woodcarver Vernon Stephens, who had once driven us from the middle of nowhere to another middle of nowhere. Another story...
Though relatively unknown and unrecognized in her lifetime, Carr was one of the first North American Modernist painters to use the Post-Impressionist painting style. She bucked the prim Victorian society and studied art for three years at the California School of Design/San Francisco Art Institute, and later, Carr spent a year in France, 1910-11, where she met the Cubists and Fauvists. Their use of bold color and broad shapes greatly influenced her work.
But upon Carr’s return to Vancouver, no one was interested in her work. She toiled in domestic obscurity for 15 years, managing an apartment complex in Victoria, until 1927, when a piece was accepted to a National Gallery of Canada exhibition where she first met the Group of Seven. She was the only woman painter to be included in the Group of Seven, modernist painters who changed the face of Canadian art
After being told that Canadian totem poles and trees were unsuitable, and simply unpaintable, Carr defiantly went out and painted them anyway—for the rest of her life. She finally gained some recognition for her work when she was nearly 60. After a series of heart attacks in 1937, Carr gave up the rigors of plain air painting, and wrote seven books, winning the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 1942.
I have seen many of her paintings in museum collections, but not this one. A reverse image search referred me to the dubious ArtPoster and Pinterest sites, several titles suggests it’s called, Lone Cedar, or (Cypress) Tree in Autumn, or simply Autumn, ca 1920, painted variously in Brittany, or in British Columbia.
I have a lino block that I carved in high school that is similar in style. I wonder if I saw her work back then? Where? At the De Young? SF Art institute? I got to see her work later, in Victoria and Vancouver. There was an article on Emily Carr in the Sunday section of the Chronicle, California Living, circa 1972, which contained a retrospective of her work. I saved that article and read it again and again and again. She was uniquely a one of a kind artist.
Though relatively unknown and unrecognized in her lifetime, Carr was one of the first North American Modernist painters to use the Post-Impressionist painting style. She bucked the prim Victorian society and studied art for three years at the California School of Design/San Francisco Art Institute, and later, Carr spent a year in France, 1910-11, where she met the Cubists and Fauvists. Their use of bold color and broad shapes greatly influenced her work.
But upon Carr’s return to Vancouver, no one was interested in her work. She toiled in domestic obscurity for 15 years, managing an apartment complex in Victoria, until 1927, when a piece was accepted to a National Gallery of Canada exhibition where she first met the Group of Seven. She was the only woman painter to be included in the Group of Seven, modernist painters who changed the face of Canadian art
After being told that Canadian totem poles and trees were unsuitable, and simply unpaintable, Carr defiantly went out and painted them anyway—for the rest of her life. She finally gained some recognition for her work when she was nearly 60. After a series of heart attacks in 1937, Carr gave up the rigors of plain air painting, and wrote seven books, winning the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 1942.
I have seen many of her paintings in museum collections, but not this one. A reverse image search referred me to the dubious ArtPoster and Pinterest sites, several titles suggests it’s called, Lone Cedar, or (Cypress) Tree in Autumn, or simply Autumn, ca 1920, painted variously in Brittany, or in British Columbia.
I have a lino block that I carved in high school that is similar in style. I wonder if I saw her work back then? Where? At the De Young? SF Art institute? I got to see her work later, in Victoria and Vancouver. There was an article on Emily Carr in the Sunday section of the Chronicle, California Living, circa 1972, which contained a retrospective of her work. I saved that article and read it again and again and again. She was uniquely a one of a kind artist.
It took some doing, but I found the painting, it’s called Tree of Autumn, 1922 - 1923, oil on canvas, 49.5 x 44.5 cm, done in the Arts and Crafts style (1913-1927). Collection of Glenbow Museum, of Calgary—which explains why I never saw it, though I’ve been to Calgary, I didn’t visit the museum. Purchased in 1956. Note bene: As of 1990, it’s housed at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Another extraordinary painting I’ve never seen before is First Nations War Canoes in Alert Bay, oil on canvas, Fauvist style, 101.5cm x 84cm. 1912. Audain Art Museum, Whistler, British Columbia. “In 1912, following a journey up the northern coast of B.C., Carr produced a number of works with First Nations motifs in her new style. However, these works were not well received with audiences in Vancouver and Victoria.”
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| First Nations War Canoes in Alert Bay, Fauvist style, 1912. Audain Museum. Wiki |
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