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Emily Carr: New Perspectives Catalog

The remarkable Canadian painter Emily Carr is subject of a retrospective that will open at Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario early in March. An exhibit usually contains a catalog and New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon follows that rule.

The exhibit spans Carr's long career and importantly has a partial recreation of the first exhibit to bring Emily Carr's paintings to the Eastern Canadian audience in 1927. That same year Carr met Toronto's Group of Seven and began a long friendship with Lawren Harris. She named him her executor upon her death. He organized the first posthumous retrospective of her artwork held in 1945.

The catalog naturally includes many of Carr's paintings. Notably it has an enchanting section focusing on her witty sketches. While reading the catalog don't pass the Table of Contents. It has a wonderful photograph of Emily Carr seated in front of her caravan surrounded by a menagerie of animals. As those who know Carr are aware she took the caravan to the country and used it as her base while on painting trips. That image captures Carr at her finest.

Emily Carr was a noted author and won a Governor General's award for her first book in 1941. Her writings and writings about her are not overlooked in this encompassing catalog. Creative license is taken in a fictional exchange of letters between Carr and Sophie, who figures prominently in Klee Wyck. Little is known of Sophie other than the fascinating and sad story Carr details in her books.

Like the new exhibit this catalog puts Emily Carr's work in perspective as an important artist and a Canadian icon.