Emily Carr

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Emily Carr

Emily Carr
Born December 13, 1871(1871-12-13)
Victoria, British Columbia
Died March 2, 1945 (aged 73)
Nationality Canadian
Field Painting, Writing
Training Westminster School of Art, Académie Colarossi
Movement Expressionism
Influenced by Fauvism, Impressionism

Emily Carr (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her as a "Canadian icon".

Contents

[edit] Work

Carr is remembered primarily for her painting. She was one of the first artists to attempt to capture the spirit of Canada in a modern style. Previously, Canadian painting had been mostly portraits and representational landscapes. Carr's main themes in her mature work were natives and nature: "native totem poles set in deep forest locations or sites of abandoned native villages" and, later, "the large rhythms of Western forests, driftwood-tossed beaches and expansive skies". [1] She blended these two themes in ways uniquely her own. Her "qualities of painterly skill and vision [...] enabled her to give form to a Pacific mythos that was so carefully distilled in her imagination".[1]

She is also remembered for her writing, again largely about her native friends. In addition to Klee Wyck, Carr wrote The Book of Small (1942),The House of All Sorts (1944), and, published posthumously, Growing Pains (1946), Pause and The Heart of a Peacock (1953), and Hundreds and Thousands (1966). These books reveal her to be an accomplished writer. Though mostly autobiographical, they have been found to be unreliable as to facts and figures if not in terms of mood and intent.

Her life itself has made her a "Canadian icon", according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. As well as being "an artist of stunning originality and strength", she was an exceptionally late bloomer, starting the work for which she is best known at the age of 57 (see Grandma Moses). She was also a woman who succeeded against the odds, living in an artistically unadventurous society, thus making her "a darling of the women's movement" (see Georgia O'Keeffe, whom she met in 1930 in New York).[1]

[edit] Recognition

Institutions named after Carr include:

In 1994, the Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union adopted the name CARR for a crater on Venus. The CARR crater has an approximate diameter of 31.9 kilometers.[2]

Mascall Dance created "The Brutal Telling" in 1997, a dance piece retelling Carr's life story. The soundtrack was commissioned from Veda Hille, who recorded the songs and released them as her album 'Here is a picture (Songs for E Carr)'.

Novelist Susan Vreeland wrote "The Forest Lover" in 2004 based on events from Carr's life, using Emily Carr as the main character/protagonist and altering some characters and chronology for the purpose of pacing. Each part of the novel is introduced by a reproduction of an actual Carr painting.[3]

Emily Carr Inlet, a sidewater of Chapple Inlet on the North Coast of British Columbia, was named in her honour.[4]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c Canadian Encyclopedia article
  2. ^ [1] IAU/WGPAN Planetary Gazetteer, USGS Branch of Astrogeology, Flagstaff, Arizona
  3. ^ Vreeland, Susan (February 2004). The Forest Lover. Viking Press. ISBN 9780670032679. 
  4. ^ Emily Carr Inlet in the BC Geographical Names Information System

[edit] References

  • Newlands, Anne. (1996). Emily Carr: an Introduction to Her Life and Art. Ontario : Firefly Books/Bookmakers Press. ISBN 1552090450.
  • Reid, Dennis A Concise History of Canadian Painting 2nd Edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 019540663X.
  • Shadbolt, Doris. (1990). Emily Carr. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295970030.
  • Tippett, Maria. (1979). Emily Carr: a Biography. Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 0195403142.
  • IAU Planetary Gazetteer Database and USGS Branch of Astrogeology (Flagstaff, Arizona).

[edit] External links

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