Emily Carr was a Canadian artist born in 1871 who is known for her paintings depicting the Indigenous peoples and landscapes of British Columbia. She studied art in San Francisco and London before being heavily influenced by the expressive styles and native art she encountered during travels to villages in British Columbia in the 1890s and 1910s. Her book Klee Wyck published in 1941 describes her experiences with the various First Nations groups in the region through their languages and cultures, and critiques the negative impacts of missionaries and settlers. The book helped bring wider recognition to Carr as an important modernist painter influenced by Indigenous artistic traditions in the Pacific Northwest.

1. Klee Wyck
Emily Carr
(1871-1945)

3. 8 language groups!
• Chinook, Haida mentioned in Carr’s book.
• (Others: Athabascan, Tsimshian, Tlingit,
Chemakuan, Wakashan, Salish)

4. Maps …. Vs.
How we mark place and time in Carr’s book

5. Emily Carr,
“Indian
Village,
Alert
Bay”
(1912)

6. “Cumshewa”
(1912)

7. • “Red Cedar” (1933)
• “Crying Totem” (1938)

8. • “Beach and Sky”
“A Haida Village”

9. • “House Front, Gold Harbor” “Forsaken”

10. • “Forest, British Columbia”
• “A Rushing Sea of Undergrowth”

11. Totem polls:
• Art/Culture
that
flourishes in
the Pacific
Northwest in
the 19th
century

12. One-legged fisherman
pole, Wrangell, Alaska

13. Emily Carr (1871-1945)
• b. in Victoria, British Columbia,
• Artist and Art Student:
• Nearest art school: San Franciso, CA (2
yrs study in the 1890s)
• First travel to Ucluelet and other
Nootka villages (1898)
• At Westminster School of Art, London
(1899)
• at Académie Colarossi in Paris: (1910)
Expressionism
• Totems…influence of native art

14. Emily Carr:
cantankerous and censored!
• 1920s-30s: exhibits paintings in Toronto,
Montreal
• Acceptance among Canada’s leading modernist
painters: “Group of Seven”
• After a stroke in 1939, turns to writing
• Publishes Klee Wyck, 1941
• Critiques missionary / settlement impact
• Impact on early publications of Klee Wyck!
• (Recovery of her text, current edition)