Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

Emily Carr’s art was deeply rooted in the landscapes, forests, and Indigenous cultures of British Columbia, yet her artistic language was shaped by ideas that reached far beyond Canada. Among these influences was the art of Japanese woodblock printing. Japanese woodblock prints offered Carr a new way of thinking about nature, composition, colour, and the relationship between humans and the landscape. Although Carr did not simply imitate Japanese prints, she absorbed aspects…

The story of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) up to its initial purchase of three Emily Carr watercolours in 1928 is especially interesting because Carr’s acquisition came at a moment when the Gallery was changing from a relatively small, government-administered collection into an institution with a national vision—and when Canadian artists were beginning to be taken seriously as part of Canada’s cultural identity. Read more: Beyond the…

Beginning around 1932, Carr largely abandoned traditional watercolour for her field studies. Instead, she began using oil paint (and sometimes house paint) thinned with gasoline on manilla paper, creating a medium that combined the fluidity of watercolour with the rich colour and permanence of oil. This technique became central to many of her finest forest paintings of the 1930s. Read more: Beyond the Forest: Emily Carr, Japanese Woodblock…