From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia

Title: From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia
Published by: Goose Lane Editions with Art Gallery of Ontario
Hardcover: $50
ISBN: 9780864928696

Emily Carr is unmatched in her catching of the natural and cultural landscapes in the beautiful British Columbia.

This major volume, designed to accompany an exhibition organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, gathers work from all phases of this extraordinary artist’s career – from her intricate early watercolours of the 1890s to her expressive hybrids of the 1930s and 40s, which carry European and North American Modernist traditions with the formal stylizations of Indigenous design.

Carr’s lifelong fascination with British Columbia’s original inhabitants transformed her. Visiting First Nations villages up and down the coast, she absorbed the true essence of the place she loved so deeply. Such experiences changed her life and charged her work, inspiring her imagination.

This exceptional volume features more than 100 colour reproductions of Carr’s work, including some of her most renowned paintings, in dialogue with dozens of Indigenous artifacts from the Pacific northwest: historic masks, baskets, and ceremonial objects by Haida, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Salish, Tlingit, and Tsimshian makers. Drawn from public and private collections, including the British Museums, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Horniman Museum and Gardens, and the museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia; these artifacts illuminate Carr’s connections to Indigenous cultures.

From the Forest to the Sea features written contributions by Toronto writer and art critic Sarah Milroy; Ian Dejardin, Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery (London) acclaimed contemporary artists Peter Doig and Jessica Stockholder; leading Carr scholars Ian Thom, Charles Hill, Kathryn Bridge, and Gerta Moray; Haida hereditary chief and master carver James Hart; Kwakwaka’wakw artists Corinne Hunt and Marianne Nicolson; and anthropologists Robert Storrie and Karen Duffek. Together they illuminate Carr’s monumental legacy and the connections to First Nations culture from which her work originates.  

From the Forest to the Sea is a recipient of the Canadian Museum Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research within the Art category.

About the authors

Sarah Milroy is Chief Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. A highly respected art critic and exhibition curator, she has contributed to more than a dozen books on art.

Ian Dejardin is an art historian and director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in Dulwich, southeast London, England. He succeeded Desmond Shawe-Taylor as director in 2005 and was previously a chief curator at the gallery from 1998.