In 1911, Emily Carr returned from a sixteen-month trip to France with a new understanding of French Modernism and a radically transformed painting style that infused her later representations of Northwest Coast First Nations communities in British Columbia. Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing—French Modernism and the West Coast showcases this dramatic evolution by presenting works Carr produced before, during, and after her artistic explorations in France, alongside texts by the Audain Art Museum’s Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Curator, Kiriko Watanabe; Carr scholar Kathryn Bridge; Carr researcher Michael Polay; art critic Robin Laurence; and Emily Carr herself.
Image credits
Cover: Le Paysage: Audain Art Museum Collection
Interior photos, in order of appearance:
Courtesy of the Royal BC Museum and Archives | House with Slanted Roof, Brittany: Audain Art Museum Collection | Le Paysage: Audain Art Museum Collection | Village by the Sea, Brittany: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University | Photo by K. Neary | Street in Brittany (Concarneau): McMichael Canadian Art Collection |Photo by K. Neary | War Canoes, Alert Bay: Tom and Teresa Gautreau Collection | War Canoes, Alert Bay: Audain Art Museum Collection |Photo by Lt. G.T. Emmons, Canadian Museum of History | Totem Poles, Kitseukla (Gitsegukla): Vancouver Art Gallery | Kispiox, the Totem of the Bear and the Moon: Private collection
Author
Kiriko Watanabe is the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Curator at the Audain Art Museum, where she has taken on Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing as her first major curatorial project. Originally from Japan, she is interested in the visual and design culture of British Columbia, with a special focus on mid-century and West Coast B.C. art. She is the curator and co-author of Selwyn Pullan: Photographing Mid-Century West Coast Modernism, and the recipient of an Award of Excellence from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
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Dr. Kathryn Bridge is the emerita Curator of History and Art at the Royal British Columbia Museum, and an adjunct faculty member in the History department at the University of Victoria. During her long and varied career at the RBCM, she curated several popular exhibitions about Emily Carr and the history of B.C., wrote and edited three books on Carr, and contributed the introductory essay to Carr’s short-story collection Klee Wyck.
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Robin Laurence is an independent writer, critic, and curator based in Vancouver. She is the visual arts critic for the Georgia Straight and a contributing editor for both Canadian Art and Border Crossings magazines, for which she writes regularly. She has published essays about art and artists in more than fifty books and exhibition catalogues, and has produced numerous reviews and feature articles for local, national, and international publications. She holds an MA in art history and a BFA in studio arts, and was educated at the University of Calgary, the University of Victoria, the Banff School of Fine Arts, and the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
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Dr. Michael Polay is a medical doctor whose affinity for Emily Carr’s work led him to collect several of her paintings. As he learned more about Carr, he began researching her paintings in his collection and eventually compiled a lifetime exhibition history of Carr’s work—including catalogues, lists, and reviews of each show—which gained him a special insight into her career and an exceptional knowledge of her body of work.
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