Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

Not Friends, Not Rivals: Emily Carr and Sophie Pemberton in Early Victoria

Published: 15 January, 2026
Written by Marilyn Jones

Sophie Pemberton (1869-1959) and Emily Carr (1871-1945) are often mentioned together as early professional women artists from Victoria, yet their relationship is best understood not as a close friendship, but as a series of parallel trajectories shaped by the same place, the same small artistic community, and profoundly different temperaments and circumstances. Read more: Not Friends, Not Rivals: Emily Carr and Sophie Pemberton in Early Victoria Their lives overlapped repeatedly—sometimes…

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Order, Illness, Faith, and Kindness: Emily Carr on Her Four Sisters

Published: 6 January, 2026
Written by Marilyn Jones

Emily Carr’s relationships with her four older sisters were central to her life and shaped both her personality and her art. They were bound tightly by loss, responsibility, and Victorian family expectations, but there was also deep strain. After the early deaths of both parents, the Carr daughters were left to manage the household together, at a time in history where women could not even hold a bank account. The family atmosphere became stricter…

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Beyond Canada: dOCUMENTA (13) and the Rise of Emily Carr’s International Reputation

Published: 5 January, 2026
Written by Marilyn Jones

Paintings by Emily Carr received international attention for the first time in one of the biggest and most influential art exhibitions in the world. In an unprecedented event for a Canadian painter, seven oil on canvas paintings by Carr from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s collection were included at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany in 2012. During its 100-day run dOCUMENTA attracted more than 750,000 people who paid to see works by more than 70…

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