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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

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Publisher(s) UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des universités du Canada)

ISSN 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital)

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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

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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. forest that and persisting importance as a local the orthodox classification methods took the place of Native subject mater heroine is reinforced in subsequent used in typical ethnographic collec- in her late work. essays by contemporary artists Corrine tions. Most of the time, he contends, In his chapter on Carr’s works on Hunt, James Hart, Jessica Stockhold- we even lack an adequate vocabulary paper entitled “Drawing and Experi- er, and Peter Doig. Milroy’s interview to describe either their form or their mentation,” which presents an ex- with Kwakwaka’wakw artist Corrine meaning. Marianne Nicolson’s and tensive selection of Carr’s charcoal Hunt provides an Indigenous perspec- Karen Duffek’s close reading of ob- drawings of the years 1928–33 and tive within the catalogue’s introduc- jects may lead to new insights. By ex- of her brush drawings executed be- tory section. Hunt asserts that First Na- plaining the meaning and use of the tween 1938 and her death in 1945, Ian tions people still fight the conception Weather Dance Mask during the weath- Thom, Senior Curator at the Vancou- expressed by Carr and her contempor- er dances of the Kwakwa ka’wakw ver Art Gallery, identifies two major aries of an idle and dying Native soci- people, Nicolson highlights North- shifs in Carr’s post-1927 work : firstly, ety. This misconception can only be west Coast First Nations’ dependency she changed her medium from water- fought, she says, by listening to voices on favourable weather conditions for colour to charcoal — allowing her to such as Haida hereditary chief and con- fishing and harvesting (and she jumps give her forests greater weight and vol- temporary master carver James Hart, forward in time to discuss the threat ume — and secondly, she began to use who explains in his essay “The Tow Hill global warming poses for Native eco- oil paint thinned with gasoline on Pole: Emily Carr’s Totem and Forest” that nomic survival). Duffek explains that manila paper — which offered her the Carr’s painting Totem and Forest (1931) Nuu-chah-nulth objects such as the speed of watercolour but with strong- actually depicts the house frontal pole Whaling Harpoon Head (Takamł) always er colours, supporting her move away of Hart’s forefather in the village Taaw stand for and are embedded in a wider from object-centred imagery and to- Tlaagaa. Although Carr might have cultural context than the ones from ward a more atmospheric one. A com- lacked knowledge about these monu- which they were taken, and that they plementary essay in the last chapter mental wooden sculptures and their function as markers of detachment of the catalogue by Kathryn Bridge, ar- meanings, Hart does acknowledge her and connection at the same time, “in- chivist at the Royal B.C. Archives in Vic- sensitivity to the materiality of the to- separable from an ancient and still toria, draws special atention to Carr’s tem pole, made of the same red cedar vital cultural complex specific to the thirteen sketchbooks, which contain as the woods that surround it. inheritance, territories and values of more than four hundred images in The catalogue reproduces images the Nuu-chah-nulth people” (260). pencil, charcoal, and watercolour from of nineteenth-century objects in- The central chapter of the cata- her travels, her study of books, and her cluding miniatures, amulets, ratles, logue, “The Modern Moment,” focus- museum visits. Bridge considers these bowls, and feast dishes, predomin- es on the years 1928–30 and features indispensable for scholars wishing

racar 41 (2016) 1 : 85–108 93 ⇢ Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, ed. From the Forest to the Sea : Emily Carr in British Columbia Phelan Gibb — which makes it difficult for them to fully explain Carr’s fas- Andrew Brink to understand not only Carr’s change cination with the artistic production Ink and Light : The Influence of Claude of style, subject, and media, but her of First Nations peoples. It would be Lorrain’s Etchings on England work as a whole. While the sketch- worthwhile to investigate Carr’s af- Montreal & Kingston : McGill-Queen’s books on display in the exhibition fective relationship with Native art of University Press for the Macdonald and reproduced in the catalogue show the Northwest Coast of British Colum- Stewart Art Centre, 2013 that drawing was for Carr a means to bia on an international scale. We can 164 pp. 60 duotone illustrations understand her environment, there pick up where the catalogue leaves $ 60 isbn 978-0-7735-4198-6 is no in-depth discussion of her prac- off and imagine new possibilities for tice of copying forms and motifs from thinking about Carr’s highly individ- ethnographic books and collections ual modernism with its specifically Christina Smylitopoulos that can be seen in the sketchbooks. regional content together with the Carr’s 1920s production of potery and discourses of international primitiv- in 1836 the painter and draughtsman rugs in Native designs is missing al- ism. This is essential in order to do John Constable delivered a lecture be- together. Instead, the authors of the justice to an artist whose body of work fore the Royal Institution on “The Ori- catalogue focus on her wider respect shows its full complexity only when gin of Landscape.” He was, in his own for the First Nations peoples of Brit- examined in relation to European words, “anxious that the world should ish Columbia and discover in her work modernism as well as locally. ¶ be inclined to look to painters for in- the atitude that would become indis- formation on painting.” Constable, pensable for a setler culture such as Elisabeth Oto is a PhD candidate in art history at whose anxiety could be read as eager- the Université de Montréal, where she is currently Canada to adopt in order to overcome working on a dissertation on Emily Carr and ness as much as distress, was respond- its colonial past. Gabriele Münter. ing critically to those who privileged From the Forest to the Sea can be cred- — [email protected] the aesthetic opinions of collectors ited with inviting the reader to see 1. Curated by Charles C. Hill, Johanne Lamou- and connoisseurs, many of whom be- Carr as based in a place shared by Na- reux, and Ian M. Thom, Emily Carr : New Perspectives lieved that the only creditable subject tive and setler colonial peoples. The on a National Icon was presented at the National of landscape art was not only found Gallery of Canada (2006) and then travelled to catalogue devotes as much space (in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary. abroad, but also in the past. Still, Con- both text and image) to Native objects 2. For an extensive discussion of the 1927 stable’s goal was also to demonstrate, as to Carr’s works, and the small-scale exhibition and its critical reception, see, for ex- “by tracing the connecting links in Native items (ceremonial as well as ample, Charles C. Hill, “Backgrounds in Canadian the history of landscape painting, Art : The 1927 Exhibition of Canadian West Coast domestic), enlarged and set against Art : Native and Modern,” Emily Carr: New Perspec- that no great painter was ever self- black or white backgrounds, some- tives on a Canadian Icon, exh. cat. (Otawa and Van- taught.” Among Constable’s influen- times surpass in their expressiveness couver, 2006), 92–121 ; and Leslie Dawn, “North- ces, including painters from the Dutch west Coast Art and Canadian National Identity, even Carr’s monumental red cedars, 1900–50,” in Native Art of the Northwest Coast : A landscape tradition (the subjects of totem and house poles, canoes, History of Changing Ideas, ed. Charlote Townsend- which were unapologetically domes- and other figures. (In the exhibition Gault, Jennifer Kramer and Ki-ke-in (Vancouver, tic) and compatriots Thomas Gains- 2013), 304–12. ˙ ˙ spaces, in contrast, these objects were 3. See Gerta Moray, “Exhibiting Carr: The borough, Richard Wilson, and the tra- grouped together in display cases and Making and Remaking of a Canadian Icon” (259– gically short-lived Thomas Girtin, was placed centrally in the rooms; and 79), and Charles C. Hill, “Backgrounds in Can- the seventeenth-century French art- adian Art,” both in Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a spectators, turning their backs to the Canadian Icon, ed. Hill, Lamoureux, and Thom. The ist Claude Lorrain. Scholars of Con- showcases to study the paintings, 1990 retrospective was guest-curated by Doris stable’s work point to an early en- risked overlooking them, although Shadbolt and coordinated by Charles Hill. counter with Claude’s Hagar and the 4. Marcia Crosby, “Construction of the Im- those who used the audio guides in aginary Indian,” in Vancouver Anthology : The Institu- Angel (1646) — a work owned and treas- the exhibition would have learned tional Politics of Art, ed. Stan Douglas (Vancouver, ured by Constable’s friend, the ama- more about them.) 1991), 268, 276–78. teur painter Sir George Beaumont — as In the evident concern for what 5. Gerta Moray, “Wilderness, Modernity a formative moment in the artist’s de- and Aboriginality in the Paintings of Emily Carr,” the two organizing institutions called Journal of Canadian Studies 33, 2 (1998) : 43–65 ; and velopment. Like other British land- “cultural diplomacy” between Can- “Emily Carr and The Traffic in Native Images,” scape painters, including his rival ada and England, the artists’ artist in Antimodernism and Artistic Experience : Policing the J.M.W. Turner, who was said to have Boundaries of Modernity, ed. Lynda Jessup (Toronto, Emily Carr threatens, at moments, 2001), 71–94. wept when he first beheld a Claude to disappear. The curators skim painting, Constable’s study of the over the impact on Carr of her years “inimitable Claude” taught him about abroad — particularly her studies in framing devices, the benefits of close Paris and Britany in 1910 with Harry atention to nature, and, crucially,

94 Reviews Recensions