Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

The 1971 Centennial Exhibition of Emily Carr was a particularly important exhibition in the history of Carr scholarship and in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of her work. It was much more than a commemorative birthday exhibition: it helped establish the framework through which Carr was understood for the next several decades. The official title was Emily Carr: A Centennial Exhibition Celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of Her Birth.

The relationship between Marius Barbeau and Emily Carr was one of the most consequential in Canadian art history. Although they were never close personal friends, Barbeau became one of her earliest and most influential champions at a pivotal moment in her life. After decades of artistic struggle, financial hardship, and professional isolation, Carr was 56 years old when she finally caught the break that transformed her career and long eluded her.

Tate Gallery’s A Century of Canadian Art was one of the most important international exhibitions in the history of Canadian art. Organized by Canada’s National Gallery and opening at London in October 1938, it was the first comprehensive historical survey of Canadian art ever shown overseas. It introduced British audiences to the breadth of Canadian artistic achievement, from early colonial portraiture and religious carving to modern landscape painting by the Group of Seven…