Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, Ed., from the Forest to the Sea : Emily

Document generated on 09/28/2021 3:58 a.m. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, ed., From the Forest to the Sea : Emily Carr in British Columbia, Toronto, ON : Art Gallery of Ontario ; London, UK : Dulwich Picture Gallery ; Fredericton, NB : Goose Lane, 2014, 304 pp., colour illustrations, $ 39.95, ISBN 978-1-894243-77-3 Elisabeth Otto Volume 41, Number 1, 2016 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1037559ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1037559ar See table of contents Publisher(s) UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des universités du Canada) ISSN 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this review Otto, E. (2016). Review of [Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, ed., From the Forest to the Sea : Emily Carr in British Columbia, Toronto, ON : Art Gallery of Ontario ; London, UK : Dulwich Picture Gallery ; Fredericton, NB : Goose Lane, 2014, 304 pp., colour illustrations, $ 39.95, ISBN 978-1-894243-77-3]. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 41(1), 92–94. https://doi.org/10.7202/1037559ar Tous droits réservés © UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit Association d'art des universités du Canada), 2016 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Nations Imagery in the Art of Emily Carr, Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, ed. Moray unfolded the socio-historical From the Forest to the Sea : Emily Carr and setler colonial reality behind in British Columbia Carr’s production of “Indian Images” Toronto, on : Art Gallery of Ontario ; and considered the roles of Canadian London, uk : Dulwich Picture Gallery ; ethnography, Christian missionaries, Fredericton, nb : Goose Lane, 2014 and wider political circumstances as 304 pp. colour illustrations well as Carr’s ambitions as a woman in $ 39.95 isbn 978-1-894243-77-3 Canada’s modernist art scene. From the Forest to the Sea clearly builds upon Moray’s groundwork by Elisabeth Oto focusing on Carr’s rootedness in the b.c. land in the presence of First Na- the catalogue From the Forest to the Sea : The custom of juxtaposing Na- tions material culture : in their ef- Emily Carr in British Columbia was pub- tive objects and Canadian landscape fort to develop a beter and more nu- lished to accompany the exhibition of painting goes back to the National anced understanding of Carr’s rela- the same name organized conjointly Gallery’s 1927 Exhibition of Canadian tionship with British Columbia, the by the Dulwich Picture Gallery in Lon- West Coast Art : Native and Modern, which editors state that they intend to “en- don and the Art Gallery of Ontario post-colonial scholars have roundly courage a discussion of Carr’s engage- in Toronto and co-curated by the To- criticized for its appropriation of Na- ment with Indigenous art and the ronto art critic Sarah Milroy and Dul- tive design for a nationalist purpose.² paradoxes of the colonial imagina- wich’s director Ian Dejardin. It in- Carr nonetheless emerged from this tion” (12). For example, in her intro- cludes more than one hundred colour exhibition as a nationally important ductory article “Why Emily Carr Mat- reproductions of Carr’s work, which artist. At the same moment, Native ters to Canadians,” Milroy tells the it brings in dialogue with about the art was being appropriated by white history of Alert Bay (‘Yalis) from the same number of images of historic Canada as a patrimony. Afer her nineteenth century onward, in order Native art of the Northwest Coast. death in 1945 and the first nation- to provide a specific illustration of the The volume focuses on the years af- al retrospective that followed a few deep effects of the Indian Act and the ter Carr’s participation in the Exhib- months later, Carr was said to be the Canadian residential schools system. ition of Canadian West Coast Art : Native and mediator between the Canadian set- Milroy reads Carr’s interest in First Modern (1927) and presents her as an tler society and the Native peoples Nations people and culture during a artist channelling the influence of her of British Columbia. It was not until time when they were most repressed homeland and its Native peoples. 1990, when Carr’s third national retro- as a protest against “the inhumanity Building on the success of Paint- spective, organized by the National of the colonial project” (37). ing Canada : Tom Thomson and the Group Gallery of Canada, was met with a First The catalogue contains introduc- of Seven at the Dulwich Picture Gallery Nations protest at Oka, that her sup- tory essays by the two curators on in 2011, this exhibition and catalogue posedly deep understanding of First Carr’s life, work, and importance for introduced Emily Carr to the British Nations culture — as promoted by her contemporary Canada. These are fol- public as Canada’s next major nation- own writing (Klee Wyck, 1941) — began lowed by six sections that mirror the al icon, an artist who manifested — as to be questioned.³ It then became im- configuration of the exhibition. The the Group of Seven had — the stark possible to ignore Carr’s setler col- editors have ensured that the perspec- forms and abundant colours of Can- onial identity, and scholars such as tives of contemporary b.c. artists, rep- adian modernist landscape paint- Marcia Crosby⁴ and Gerta Moray sub- resentatives of First Nations peoples, ing. The Art Gallery of Ontario had sequently raised questions of appro- and scholars from art history and the harder task of presenting “seem- priation and assimilation of “Indian anthropology have been integrat- ingly familiar works with fresh eyes” Design” in Carr’s work. Moray was the ed into the chapters: “In the For- (11): Carr has had more national retro- first scholar to link Carr’s ethno-artis- est” (James Hart, Jessica Stockhold- spectives than any other artist in Can- tic project of creating a complete pic- er, Robert Storrie), “The Modern Mo- ada, the most recent in 2006.¹ From the torial record of Native villages with ment” (Gerta Moray, Charles Hill, Forest to the Sea atempts to offer a new international primitivism, though Marianne Nicolson), “Drawing and look at Carr’s work by pursuing a pol- she differentiated European practices Experimentation” (Ian Thom), “A New itical agenda that reveals a specifically from Carr’s direct contact with and ad- Freedom” (Peter Doig), and “Out to Canadian sensibility built upon a di- dress of the social realities of her own the Sea, up to the Sky” (Karen Duffek, versity of voices, while still addressing province.⁵ In her monumental 2006 Kathryn Bridge). The section “Try- the country’s colonial history. monograph Unsetling Encounters : First ing to understand,” which focuses 92 Reviews Recensions on Carr’s contact and engagement antly from the Tlingit/Tsimshian and Carr’s iconic female figures such as with Indigenous peoples, is the on- Haida Nations, distinctive in their Guyasdoms D’Sonoqua (c. 1930) and To- ly one without scholarly essays. While simple but expressive formline de- tem Mother, Kitwancool (1928). The paint- the volume covers various aspects sign. The works shown in the gal- ings are juxtaposed with a selection of Emily Carr’s œuvre including her lery space and presented in the cata- of expressive and colourful ritual use of photography (Hill), her pictor- logue were drawn from public and masks from the Northwest Coast and ial strategies in representing the vast private collections in British Colum- with commentary from Gerta Moray b.c. landscape (Stockholder), and her bia and Great Britain. The curators and Charles Hill as well as Marianne influence on international contem- seem to have chosen them for what Nicolson. Moray asks us to acknow- porary artists (Doig), its emphasis, they saw as a resonance between the ledge Carr’s mission to reconcile Can- through its structure, illustrations, aesthetic or spirit of the objects and adian setler and First Nations people and writing, is on Carr’s relation to Carr’s paintings, and for their capacity through art, even though Carr some- Native peoples of British Columbia. to bridge the colonial past and the times misunderstood Native culture Milroy’s introductory essay as- lived reality of First Nations people profoundly and accepted the setler serts that Carr’s work was grounded (Carr had no direct experience with conception of the First Nations as an in a veritable will to understand Na- any of them). In his essay “Ambiguity expiring race. Moray suggests that by tive cultures, and that her merging of in Northwest Coast Design,” Robert fusing post-Cubist techniques with local experiences and international Storrie, an anthropologist and former the motifs of traditional pole carvings, influences has made her a role mod- curator at the British Museum, points Carr was able to portray the affective el for contemporary b.c. artists such to setler cultures’ difficulty in under- qualities of the colonial encounter as Jeff Wall, Damian Moppet, Chris- standing Northwest Coast design. with the Native totem poles, qualities tos Dikeakos, Liz Magor, and Lawrence He argues that the objects used dur- that can also be found in the drawings Paul Yuxweluptun. Carr’s influence ing the great feasts (potlatches) resist and sketches of the b.c.

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