Marilyn Jones | Emily Carr Chronicler

Emily Carr’s People’s Gallery was a deeply personal and innovative initiative she launched in late 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression. At the time, she was living in her boarding house, the House of All Sorts in Victoria which she operated as a sole source of income. She had given up her annual pottery sales and was letting her paintings go for $5 or $10 a piece. She had almost stopped…

The Vancouver Art Gallery will open That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature, its largest presentation of the work of Emily Carr (1871–1945, Victoria, B.C.) in more than two decades in February 2026. Overlooked in her own time, Carr is now recognized as one of Canada’s most important artists, whose distinctive modernist vision has profoundly shaped how British Columbia’s landscape is perceived, understood and represented. That Green Ideal features work…

The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) and Emily Carr are indelibly linked in the history of Canadian art. Since the gallery’s founding in 1931, Carr has not only occupied a central place in its collection but has also played a foundational role in the gallery’s identity, legacy, and public engagement. Over the decades, the VAG has grown into the principal steward of Carr’s artistic legacy, housing the largest and most comprehensive body of her…