Autobiography

I was born in Victoria, BC, in 1871. On leaving high school, I went to San Francisco as a student at the Mark Hopkins School of Art and spent three years there. I returned to Victoria and taught children’s classes and saved up for trip to Europe.

I attended the Westminster School of Art in London. But after the free, wild life of the West, London wilted the very life out of me, so I went down to Cornwall and studied in the open, also to the Bushey studios. Returning again to Westminster School, I broke down completely, wrestled three years with desperate illness, then returned to Canada and started all over again, working and saving, this time with Paris in view/

Teaching in Vancouver and very successful with children’s classes, I was asked to teach at the art club and made a complete failure, their complaint that being “that I could not realize that they were just amusing themselves and tried to make the ladies work in earnest.” So they dismissed me. I was glad.

In 1911, I went to Paris with a letter of introduction to a modern painter of Scotch birth, Harry Gibb. This man opened my eyes to the joyousness of the new school. At that time he was being bitterly criticized.

By his advice, I became a student at the Academie Colarossi, Paris. I could not stand the airlessness of the life rooms for long, the doctors stated, as they had done in London, that “there was something about these big cities that these Canadians from their big spaces couldn’t stand, it was like putting a pine tree in a pot.” So I left Paris and joined outdoor classes under Mr. Gibb, who was then in Brittany.

When my money was spent, I returned to Canada, but they hated and ridiculed my work. My first exhibition here they dishonoured my work, putting it behind things, under shelves or on the ceiling. My friends begged me to go back to my old way of painting, but I had tasted the joys of a bigger way. It would have been impossible had I wanted to, which I did not

Whenever I could afford it I went up North, among the Indians and the woods, and forgot all about everything in the joy of those lonely, wonderful places. I decided to try and make as good a representative collection of those old villages and wonderful totem poles as I could, for the love of the people and the love of the art; whether anybody liked them or not I did not care a bean. I painted them to please myself in my own way, but I also stuck rigidly to the faces because I knew I was painting history.

The way came (1914). I had a living to make, Of course, nobody wanted to buy my pictures. I never tried to paint to please them anyway, so I did horrible things like taking boarders to make a living, and the very little time I had for painting I tried to paint in the despised, adorable joyous modern way.

The last two years I have take up… pottery, adapting and utilizing my Indian designs for it is much pleasanter livelihood than catering to people’s appetites.

Klee Wyck

Emily Carr wrote these twenty-one sketches after visiting and living with Native people, painting their totem poles and villages, many of them in wild and remote areas. She tells her stories with beauty, pathos and a vivid awareness of the comedy of people and situations.

The Book of Small

Emily Carr wrote these thirty-six sketches that relate anecdotes about her life as a young girl in the frontier town of Victoria. She notes: “There were a great many things that I only half understood, such as saloons and the Royal Family and the Chain Gang.”

The House of All Sorts

Emilly Carr wrote these forty-one stories of those hard-working days as landlord and the parade of tenants — young couples, widows, sad bachelors and rent evaders. In an additional twenty-five stories, she describes the mutual bonds of affection between her and her dogs.

Growing Pains

Completed just before Emily Carr died in 1945, Growing Pains tells the story of her life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. She writes about the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting and of the unexpected vindication and triumph she felt when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them.

Heart of a Peacock

A collection of 51 short stories by the legendary writer and painter Emily Carr, arranged in themes such as her experiences with Native people, her adventures with various beloved creatures and her love of nature. Together, they underline Carr’s place as a writer with the sharp yet tender eye of an artist, with a deep feeling for the tragedies of life and with a rich sense of the comic.

Pause

While studying art in London, Emily Carr seriously undermined her health and was sent to a sanatorium for a complete rest cure. Bridling at the hospital’s rules, which prohibited excitement of any kind, the always rebellious Carr proceeded to make friends, raise birds, and cause trouble. In words and enchanting sketches, in Pause: A Sketchbook, Carr presents a funny, poignant account of her 18-month convalescence,

Hundreds and Thousands

Hundreds and Thousands consists of her journals from 1927 to 1941. She began keeping a journal in 1927, when, after years of her work being derided and ignored, came unexpected vindication and triumph when the Group of Seven accepted her as one of them and encouraged her to overcome the years of despair when she stopped painting.

Opposite Contraries

Collected from Emily Carr’s private and public writings and edited by Susan Crean, these previously unpublished pieces reveal the outspoken artist at her most forthright. Expurgated sections from Carr’s journals detail her anguished meditations on her spiritual mission, musings about Native culture and the white community’s reaction to it, and thoughts about her family. Her groundbreaking 1913 "Lecture on Totems”, her first recorded writing on Native art and people, is also included, as are some of her most fascinating letters to friends and colleagues.

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