Provenance

Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton

Private collection, Calgary

Related to the canvas “Singing Tree” sold at Auction, 2022.

Around 1930 Carr’s art began to evolve rapidly towards full maturity. On the advice of Lawren Harris and Mark Tobey she stopped painting totems, the subjects of most of her earlier works, and turned to the forests and beaches in and around Victoria. Carr probably first adopted the oil on paper sketching technique in 1930 as an alternative to sketching outdoor with watercolour. The oil on paper offered the advantages of portability and low cost, as well as the potential of great versatility.

The years 1934 to 1936 are certainly the most successful of Carr’s artistic career, for she had found her own expression in a remarkably original and vital painting technique. Using simplified layouts that allowed her great latitude of paint handling and describing natural forms with calligraphic notations of remarkable variety, she produced some of this country’s most audacious art of the period.

Chris Varley, Emily Carr, Oil on Paper Sketches, The Edmonton Art Gallery, 1979