MEDIA IMAGES

Media Images for Curious, Royal BC Museum at Wing Sang, June 14 – Sept 3, 2012

Images available from: [email protected] or by calling 250-387-3207 (or 250-387-2101)

The four concurrent exhibitions in the 7,500 sq ft space are: Artifact|Artifiction; Intimate Glimpses; Magic Lantern; Bottled Beauty.

Wing Sang building at 51 East Pender, in ’s Chinatown, built in 1889.

Photo: Martin Tessler

Mockup of the Wing Sang building as it will look from June 14 to September 3, 2012 during the Royal BC Museum’s Curious exhibition.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr wearing cape and tam, 1901. Photographer (attributed to) John Douglas, St. Ives, England. I- 60891.

Emily Carr, age 30, poses for the camera in 1901. Her cape dates to the 1890s, perhaps purchased while in England.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

The two friends are short, cannot see over the crowds and miss most of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession. Sketch and prose from Emily Carr “funny book” tracing her adventures with friend and fellow boarder Beatrice Hannah Kendall, London 1901. On loan, private collection.

Note: This sketch and the prose below would have appeared on opposing pages in the handmade book Emily Carr gave to her friend Hannah Kendall.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives.

The two friends are short, cannot see over the crowds and miss most of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession. Sketch and prose from Emily Carr “funny book” tracing her adventures with friend and fellow boarder Beatrice Hannah Kendall, London 1901. On loan, private collection.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr, Crécy-en-Brie, 1911. Oil on panel. PDP04682.

This painting, made during Carr’s time in France in 1911, was given as a wedding present. Presented in memory of Edward and Ellen Cridge, 1981.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr, Study in Colour and Form, 1911. Oil on canvas. PDP00668.

Carr is working through her “new way of seeing” in this painting created in France, 1911. Her art went from traditional to modern, and Carr herself changed as well.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr, Skidigate (sic) Queen Charlotte Islands, 1912. Oil on canvas. PDP583.

This was painted in 1912 following Carr’s first trip to Skidegate, Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) and demonstrates her new painting style after exposure to post- impressionists and other artists in France.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr, Sombreness Sunlit, 1938-1940. Oil on canvas. PDP633.

This is one of Carr’s classic masterpieces. She captured the movement of sunlight and juxtaposition of shadow within the deep forest of the West Coast. In her diaries Carr wrote of her struggles to capture her perceptions. The forest in all its forms took over her interest almost completely from 1930 to 1937.

Intimate Glimpses Emily Carr – the evolution of an artist

Credit: © Royal BC Museum, BC Archives. Emily Carr, Yan, Queen Charlotte Islands, 1912. Oil on canvas. PDP2146.

Carr was in the islands especially to paint the poles and villages. She was on a quest to document what she believed to be a dying culture, so she arranged travel to abandoned villages like Yan, to paint. (Skidegate was not abandoned). She painted in watercolours and sketched in pencil in the field and then came back to Vancouver and worked up oil paintings like these in her studio. These are two of the seven works purchased by the BC Government from Carr's estate in 1945. The frames were designed by Lawren Harris, member of the Group of Seven and one of Carr's executors.

Magic Lantern seen through glass

Strawberry pickers in Saanich, Vancouver Island, about 1920. Gus A. Maves; I-66570.

Magic Lantern British Columbia seen through glass

Phyllis Munday and daughter Edith on , North Vancouver, 1924. Don Munday; I-66571.

Magic Lantern British Columbia seen through glass

Ruby Nachtubb and Pete, about 1908. Newcombe Family; I-66573.

Bottled Beauty Creatures from the collection

When skin loses its blood supply and is then preserved in alcohol, it loses pigments rapidly. Most specimens in the Royal BC Museum’s “wet collection” quickly become quite pale.

Bottled Beauty Creatures from the collection

The Royal BC Museum has been collecting animals and plants since 1886. Most of the animals on display in uplit containers – including this snake – would look like deformed blobs if allowed to dry out.

Bottled Beauty Creatures from the collection

Some of the thousands of specimens in the “wet collection” at the Royal BC Museum date back to the 1800s.

Artifact|Artifiction Test wits with our curators

Curator’s Statement: The oil and gas industry in northern British Columbia used plugs like this to seal seismic test holes. True or False?

Artifact|Artifiction Test wits with our curators

Curator’s Statement: This is an early anti-theft device for a car. True or False?

Media contact: Royal BC Museum Media Enquiries 250-387-3207 (or 250-387-2101) [email protected]