A new look at the art of Emily Carr that explores the profound impact of her time spent in France early in her career, by two of our most distinguished writers on art.
In 1911, Emily Carr returned from a sixteen-month trip to France with a new understanding of French Modernism and a radically transformed painting style, one that broke free from the artistic shackles of her conservative training and embraced a new means of expression. Her studio experiences in Paris, her en plein-air painting in the French countryside, and her encounters with such artists as expatriate English painter William Henry Phelan Gibb, Scottish painter John Duncan Fergusson, and New Zealand watercolourist Frances Hodgkins had a profound impact on her work.

Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing focuses on the dramatic changes in her painting style, showcasing the paintings, drawings, and watercolours that she produced in France, as well as the works she created upon her return to the West Coast of Canada in 1912. The text of her 1930 speech "Fresh Seeing," in which Carr sought to explain Modern art to her baffled public, is included alongside an essay by writer and critic Robin Laurence. Also featured are essays by Carr scholar Kathryn Bridge, who examines the artist's travels and studies with post-Impressionist artists in Paris, Crécy-en-Brie, St. Efflam, and Concarneau; collector Michael Polay, who details the inclusion of two of Carr's paintings in the famed Salon d'Automne alongside pieces by Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, and many other internationally renowned artists; and Audain Art Museum curator Kiriko Watanabe, who recounts Carr's return to the West Coast and the paintings that resulted from her ambitious sketching expeditions to the Upper Skeena River, Haida Gwaii, and Alert Bay in the summer of 1912.

Kiriko Watanabe is the assistant curator at the West Vancouver Museum and co-curated an exhibition of Selwyn Pullan’s photographs for the museum.

Kiriko Watanabe's profile page

Kathryn Bridge, PhD, is an archivist and historian who has curated exhibitions and written about Emily Carr for several decades. Her research is focused on the body of Carr's art and writings held in the BC Archives collections. Exhibitions include Emily Carr: Artist, Author, Eccentric Genius (2001) and The Other Emily (2010) at the Royal BC Museum, Victoria; and Intimate Glimpses: The Early Life of Emily Carr (2011) at the Wing Sang Gallery, Vancouver. Writings include the introduction to Carr's Klee Wyck (2004) and the forewords to Wildflowers by Emily Carr (2003) and Sister and I: From Victoria to London, an illustrated manuscript journal by Carr published in 2011. Bridge's Emily Carr in England is to be published by the Royal BC Museum in 2014.

Kathryn Bridge's profile page

Robin Laurence is an award-winning freelance writer, critic and curator based in Vancouver. She has a B.F.A. in studio arts and an M.A. in art history, and was educated at the University of Calgary, the University of Victoria, the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Instituto Allende in Mexico. She has written dozens of essays for local and regional galleries, and her articles on art have appeared in many magazines. Laurence was also visual arts critic for the Georgia Strait and the Vancouver Sun.

Robin Laurence's profile page

Michal Polay's profile page