11.5 × 7 in
 in
 cm
$28,000
This lovely early watercolour by iconic Canadian artist Emily Carr depicts an illuminated scene of a train trestle stretching along a rocky cliff face, evergreens speckling the mountainside, growing thick above and fading into the pale blue sky. Below the bridge, the water flows and splashes against impressionistic rocks, creating a calm but undeniably living snapshot in time. Works from this period between 1905 to 1909 are rare – Carr was between her sojourns in England and France – a poignant formative period when she was travelling throughout British Columbia (and Alaska) and forming the deep connections with place that would underpin both her artistic production and writing. Despite its traditional and subtly pastoral rendering, the trestle is distinctly modernist – its structure and geometry symbolizing industry against “pure” wilderness where mountains and water meet.
Statement by Emily Carr expert, Dr. Kerry Mason:
“In 1905, Carr resumed painting in British Columbia. Her preferred medium was watercolour for outdoor sketching. There are several examples of lower Vancouver Island watercolour landscapes in the collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. There are also small watercolours—which Carr created in Alert Bay, Sechelt, Campbell River, Vancouver, and Ucluelet—as well as various locations in Alaska. These are located in the collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Royal BC Museum, with additional examples in other public and private collections, including the National Gallery.
The brushwork and palette of this painting are very similar to other early Emily Carr watercolour sketches. In terms of subject matter, comparable paintings in public collections can be found in the Royal BC Museum collection in Victoria, BC. The pen and ink sketches of James Bay Bridge, which Carr executed in 1894, and Rock Bay Bridge, which was completed in 1895, show Carr’s interest in architectural structure. Bridges and assorted buildings appear in several sketches contained in journals and travel diaries, as well.
This watercolour becomes that much more important considering that it represents the early outpouring of Carr’s talent and the result of the traditional art training of the day, to which Carr was committed until her trip to France. After her studies in France from 1910 to 1911, however, she chose to paint in an entirely different style, moving from the representational British Academy tradition to the Post-Impressionist and, in particular, the Fauve, style. Her brushwork, palette, and technique all changed radically following her time in France. I feel confident that this landscape painting predates Carr’s trip to France in the summer of 1910.”  – August 10, 2013
Learn more about the life and work of Emily Carr here.
| Medium | Painting |
| Signature | Signed |
| Frame | Framed |
| Condition | very good |
| Seller | Private |
| Location | Victoria, Canada |
| Provenance | Mr. A. Colquhoun; Private Collection, Victoria, BC, acquired from above circa 1960; Thence by descent. |
Emily Carr was a painter and writer whose lifelong inspiration was the coastal environment of British Columbia. Her later paintings of the vast Canadian West Coast sky and monumental trees, with their sweeping brushstrokes, demonstrate her continued desire to paint in a “big” way that she felt was in keeping with the expansiveness of her environment.
Carr first studied at the California School of Design in San Francisco from 1890 to 1893 and sketched in the First Nations village of Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1899. Carr travelled to England the same year, studying in London and at St. Ives in Cornwall. She returned to Canada five years later, soon moving from Victoria to Vancouver to teach. In 1907, she travelled by ship to Alaska and determined to depict the monumental arts of the First Nations of the West Coast.
In search of a bigger vision of art, she went to France in 1910, where she was introduced to the work of the Fauves, French artists who were dubbed the “wild beasts” for their daring use of bright colours. In 1912, Carr made a six-week painting trip to 15 First Nations villages along the British Columbia coast. After exhibiting the results in Vancouver, Carr settled in Victoria, where she lived by renting out rooms, growing fruit, breeding dogs, and, later, making pottery and rugs decorated with Indigenous designs to sell to tourists.
In 1927, Carr was invited to participate in the Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art in Ottawa. The exhibition included thirty-one of her paintings, as well as pottery and rugs. She came east for the opening and, in Toronto, met members of the Group of Seven, beginning a lifelong correspondence with Lawren Harris.
After the success of this trip, Carr returned to Victoria and began the most prolific period of her career. She painted Indigenous subjects until 1931, then took as her principal themes the trees and forests of British Columbia and the coastal skies. In 1937, she suffered a heart attack and devoted much of her time to writing. Her first book, Klee Wyck (1941), received the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 1942. She had solo exhibitions in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal prior to her death in 1945.
Source: https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/emily-carr
Tags
