From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia

Emily Carr captures the natural and cultural landscapes
of British Columbia like no other artist before or after her.
From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British
Columbia gathers work from all phases of this extraordinary
artist's career-from her delicate early watercolours
of the 1890s to her bold painterly hybrids of the 1930s
and 1940s, which marry European and North American
Modernist traditions with the formal stylizations of
Indigenous design.

Carr's lifelong fascination with British Columbia's
original inhabitants transformed her. Visiting First
Nations villages up and down the coast, she absorbed
the essence of the place she loved so well. Those experiences
changed her life and charged her work, inspiring
her imagination.

This monumental volume features more than 100
colour reproductions of Carr's work, including some
of her most renowned paintings, in dialogue with dozens
of Indigenous artifacts from the Pacific Northwest:
historic masks, baskets and ceremonial objects by Haida,
Kwakwaka'wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Salish, Tlingit and
Tsimshian makers. Drawn from public and private
collections, including the British Museum, the Pitt Rivers
Museum at the University of Oxford, Horniman Museum
and Gardens, and the Museum of Anthropology at the University
of British Columbia, these artifacts illuminate Carr's
connectionsto Indigenous cultures and allow readers to
contemplatethe attachment to landscape from both European
and Indigenous perspectives.

From the Forest to the Sea features contributions by Toronto
writer and art critic Sarah Milroy; Ian Dejardin, Director
of Dulwich Picture Gallery (London); acclaimed contemporary
artists Peter Doig and Jessica Stockholder; leading
Carr scholars Ian Thom, Charles Hill, Kathryn Bridge
and Gerta Moray; Haida hereditary chief and master carver
James Hart; Kwakwaka'wakw artists Corrine Hunt and
Marianne Nicolson; and anthropologists Robert Storrie and
Karen Duffek. Together, they illuminate Carr's immense
legacy and the connections to First Nations culture that
inspired her work.


Authors: Emily Carr, Art Gallery of Ontario Staff, Dulwich Picture Gallery Staff
Editors: Ian Dejardin, Sarah Milroy
Edition: illustrated
Publisher: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2014