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Emily Carr was born December 13, 1871, the youngest of six, to British immigrants who settled in Victoria BC. She loved drawing even from a young age and in her early twenties, she attended the San Francisco Art Institute and the Westminster School of Art in London, England. From there she travelled to France where she was greatly influenced by the Post-Impressionists and Fauvists. Returning home in 1912, she organized her first exhibition of 70 watercolours and oils from her time in Europe. That summer Carr travelled north, to Haida Gwaii and the Skeena River, where she documented the art of the Haida, Gitxsan and Tsimshian, the Indigenous people of the land. This was not the first time Carr travelled North to Indigenous villages to paint and sketch the totem poles and old villages. Two themes emerged during these trips, creating a visual record of these places before they disappeared and the distinctive landscape of the West Coast of Canada. These became the greatest source material of Carr’s painting career. Carr met the members of the Group of Seven in 1927 when she was invited to exhibit her paintings alongside two members, Edwin Holgate, and A.Y. Jackson. Lawren Harris became a major supporter of her work welcoming her into the ranks of Canada's leading modernists. Until then, Carr felt alienated within the art scene in British Columbia since her paintings were being viewed as too unconventional by the public eye. This was a huge encouragement for her to continue with her art practice. Harris and Carr remained in touch for the rest of their lives. In 1930-31, she exhibited alongside the Group of Seven and in 1933 when the group disbanded, she became one of the founding members of the Canadian Group of Painters. In 1938-39, Carr’s reputation as a Canadian painter gained publicity in the national and international art scene once she displayed her paintings in group exhibitions at the Tate Gallery in London and the New York World’s Fair. During the later years of her life, Carr focused on recording her explorations and experiences as an artist within a series of publications. Carr passed away in 1945. Emily Carr remains, to this day, a Canadian icon. Though she trained in various styles and subjects, Emily Carr preferred and became most famous for her landscape paintings. Her works depicted the vast Canadian landscape, particularly the West Coast, and the indigenous communities living there. While her earliest works were more classical and conservative due to her early training, her time studying in Paris brought new life to her work. Carr became heavily influenced by fauvism and post-impressionism; she began to explore colours, texture, and new compositions in her work. This experimentation led to the development of her style, featuring thick, expressive brushstrokes and a simplification of details, which would continue to evolve throughout her career. This style is evident in her landscapes and forest paintings. Carr also became well known for her portrayal of Indigenous communities and totem poles along the West Coast, which portrayed indigenous communities from a new perspective. Visiting these communities, she would create a loose drawing in sketchbooks, which she would later use to create larger studio works in watercolour or oil. |
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GET INSPIRED
Get Inspired by Nature
Try this creative activity based on the artwork!
Emily Carr was most famous for her landscape paintings, which captured the Canadian spirit with their simplified forms and painterly brush strokes. Now try your hand at creating a landscape inspired by the style of Emily Carr.
SUPPLIES
- Canvas or Thick/Heavy Weight Paper
- Acrylic Paint (If you don't have paint you can even try this activity with pencil crayon, pastels or watercolour paints - it'll jsut give you work a different effect!)
- Paintbrushes
- Container of Water
- Rag/Paper Towel (for drying brushes)
INSTRUCTIONS
- You’ll want to start by setting up all your supplies in the location you want to paint. This could be your yard, the view from you window or even a photo you admire. Since Emily Carr mainly painted landscapes, you’ll want to make sure wherever you set up has a good natural landscape to paint.
- Now, once you have all your supplies set up and a good scene to paint, its time to get started. While looking at your landscape try and think about what shapes and colours you see. Try not to get stuck on the details of each tree or rock but the general shape of the object.
- Thin out your paint with some water and begin by creating a light sketch of the basic shapes you see in your landscape onto your canvas or paper. Before you move on to the next step, you’ll have to wait for this layer to dry completely.
- Once you’ve let your sketch dry completely, its time to really start layering your bold and expressive paint! Take a larger paintbrush and begin to work on the next layer of your painting, using your sketch as a loose guide. You don’t want to get to hung up on sticking to your sketch though keep your brushstrokes fun and expressive!
- It’s important to remember when working on your painting that Emily Carr used these large painterly brushstrokes to create movement and texture in her work, so don’t get to hung up on making something perfectly blended or super realistic, try to focus on capturing the feeling and being expressive in your work
Don’t forget, there are no mistakes in art! Be bold and have fun!
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Share your inspired work with us!
Send us an e-mail with your name, photo of your work and the activity it was inspired by and it could be posted on our website!
Please be aware that whatever is posted is widely accessible. The AGA is not responsible for the copyright and has no control of what people will do with the posts.
Please send you submission to: news@artgalleryofalgoma.com
Please be aware that whatever is posted is widely accessible. The AGA is not responsible for the copyright and has no control of what people will do with the posts.
Please send you submission to: news@artgalleryofalgoma.com