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Emily Carr: A Biography
Emily Carr is famous for expressing the mood, mystery, and soul of Canada’s west coast in landscape art and novels. She was also reputed to be alone except for breeding dogs and a monkey, camping in isolated Indian islands to save the images of the last deteriorating totem poles. Lavishly illustrated with the photos of the person and her works.
- GenresBiographyArtNonfiction
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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March 25, 2021
I have read several books about Emily Carr, one of the most original painters of the first half of the twentieth century and widely acknowledged as Canada’s most enduring painter. This biography published in 1979 is acknowledged by critics to be the best version of her life story, capturing her complex and courageous life and winning the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction in 1978.
Emily was the eighth of nine children born to British immigrant parents living in Victoria. She spent years perfecting her craft studying in San Francisco, London and Paris, where far from home, she was often depressed and lonely. She was always at odds with the Victorian society she lived in, forever chafing against the restrictions placed on women who were permitted to live only narrow defined roles and expected to know their place. She hated the smug complacency of Victorian society and their traditional ways but sought their acceptance and support for most of her life.
Tippett describes the source of Emily’s many problems as the memory she had of an event with her father when she was fourteen. The exact details were never recorded and in this text is left as something ambiguous, but Emily hints at its nature, forever referring to it as his “bestial brutalness”. She never forgave her father and from that time on began to hate him. It lived on in her memory as “the brutal telling” and she did not speak of it to anyone until fifty years later.
After the event, her sexual, social and family interactions were tinged with guilt and alienation. She became the black sheep of the family and became cantankerous and difficult to live with. She refused the approach of suitors and instead focused her attention on animals, developing relationships with them as a substitute for human relationships.
Carr had started out painting watercolors, the primary inspiration for her paintings the huge forests and the traditional native culture of British Columbia. But after studying in Paris in 1910, she began painting in oils, developing her own bold, colorful post-impressionistic style of painting which she brought back to Victoria in 1912. She painted for about ten years and had a substantial body of work, but got little attention or support because no one in Victoria understood it. They were accustomed to the tranquil country scenes depicted in European paintings, while she was trying to make her work big and bold. At one point, desperately needing a source of income she built a small apartment house she named “The House of All Souls” so she could live from the rent and continue to paint, but the building and its tenants took most of her time and she did little painting over the next fifteen years.
Nevertheless by 1927 she was becoming recognized by Eastern Canadian art critics. She met Lawren Harris from the Group of Seven and was struck by his use of distortion and vibrant color. She viewed the work of others from the Group and was impressed by their paintings of the rugged landscape of northern Canada. It gave her courage to continue her journey away from the tyranny of the conventional artistic community in Victoria where she was so roundly criticized and she returned to BC more confident about shifting her work from recording objects for history as reproductions, to trying to uncover the inner power and strength of the native people, their way of life and their huge totems through her work.
It was Carr and the group of Seven who helped define Canada’s own distinctive style of painting. The work on which her reputation rests started late in life, when she was already fifty-seven, but she successfully navigated that difficult journey.
Emily continued to paint throughout her life despite heart problems and a number of strokes. The last ten years of her life were the most successful and artistically satisfying. In these later years when her health prevented her from painting, she turned to writing and came to terms with the “brutal telling” and what happened to her at the hands of her father. She published Klee Wyck, a group of autobiographical short stories for which she won a Governor General Award for Non-Fiction in 1941.
Even though happy in the last days of her life and essentially at peace having received wide acclaim for both her writing and her art, she was still irritable with friends and family. It was never easy to be in her company.
This is a detailed portrait of a courageous women who overcame many obstacles in life to achieve the recognition for her work she felt she deserved. It is meticulously researched, well written and presents as an interesting linear account of her life.
Emily Carr is now recognized as a Canadian icon, a talented painter and writer who was often grouchy, usually misunderstood and never one to follow conventional ways. It was a long treacherous path, often filled with disappointment, frustration and sadness, but this formidable woman completed her journey, providing a model to others who must overcome incredible obstacles to meet their goals. It is an inspiring life story
Emily was the eighth of nine children born to British immigrant parents living in Victoria. She spent years perfecting her craft studying in San Francisco, London and Paris, where far from home, she was often depressed and lonely. She was always at odds with the Victorian society she lived in, forever chafing against the restrictions placed on women who were permitted to live only narrow defined roles and expected to know their place. She hated the smug complacency of Victorian society and their traditional ways but sought their acceptance and support for most of her life.
Tippett describes the source of Emily’s many problems as the memory she had of an event with her father when she was fourteen. The exact details were never recorded and in this text is left as something ambiguous, but Emily hints at its nature, forever referring to it as his “bestial brutalness”. She never forgave her father and from that time on began to hate him. It lived on in her memory as “the brutal telling” and she did not speak of it to anyone until fifty years later.
After the event, her sexual, social and family interactions were tinged with guilt and alienation. She became the black sheep of the family and became cantankerous and difficult to live with. She refused the approach of suitors and instead focused her attention on animals, developing relationships with them as a substitute for human relationships.
Carr had started out painting watercolors, the primary inspiration for her paintings the huge forests and the traditional native culture of British Columbia. But after studying in Paris in 1910, she began painting in oils, developing her own bold, colorful post-impressionistic style of painting which she brought back to Victoria in 1912. She painted for about ten years and had a substantial body of work, but got little attention or support because no one in Victoria understood it. They were accustomed to the tranquil country scenes depicted in European paintings, while she was trying to make her work big and bold. At one point, desperately needing a source of income she built a small apartment house she named “The House of All Souls” so she could live from the rent and continue to paint, but the building and its tenants took most of her time and she did little painting over the next fifteen years.
Nevertheless by 1927 she was becoming recognized by Eastern Canadian art critics. She met Lawren Harris from the Group of Seven and was struck by his use of distortion and vibrant color. She viewed the work of others from the Group and was impressed by their paintings of the rugged landscape of northern Canada. It gave her courage to continue her journey away from the tyranny of the conventional artistic community in Victoria where she was so roundly criticized and she returned to BC more confident about shifting her work from recording objects for history as reproductions, to trying to uncover the inner power and strength of the native people, their way of life and their huge totems through her work.
It was Carr and the group of Seven who helped define Canada’s own distinctive style of painting. The work on which her reputation rests started late in life, when she was already fifty-seven, but she successfully navigated that difficult journey.
Emily continued to paint throughout her life despite heart problems and a number of strokes. The last ten years of her life were the most successful and artistically satisfying. In these later years when her health prevented her from painting, she turned to writing and came to terms with the “brutal telling” and what happened to her at the hands of her father. She published Klee Wyck, a group of autobiographical short stories for which she won a Governor General Award for Non-Fiction in 1941.
Even though happy in the last days of her life and essentially at peace having received wide acclaim for both her writing and her art, she was still irritable with friends and family. It was never easy to be in her company.
This is a detailed portrait of a courageous women who overcame many obstacles in life to achieve the recognition for her work she felt she deserved. It is meticulously researched, well written and presents as an interesting linear account of her life.
Emily Carr is now recognized as a Canadian icon, a talented painter and writer who was often grouchy, usually misunderstood and never one to follow conventional ways. It was a long treacherous path, often filled with disappointment, frustration and sadness, but this formidable woman completed her journey, providing a model to others who must overcome incredible obstacles to meet their goals. It is an inspiring life story
May 29, 2013
Added images to blog http://aneyespy.blogspot.ca/2013/05/i...
118 illustrations (many color), excellent index broken down into people, pictures, exhibitions, travels, 22 pg references
1871-1945 Victoria British Columbia, studied in Paris and England despite seasickness enroute, produced incredibly emotionally and physically moving deep green forests and totem record. Impressive research from artist's journals, notebooks, correspondence, interviews, other books, set beside timely photographs, some, like Blunden Harbor p179, obviously the basis p164. Her work clearly responded to influences; dated text next to sweeping abstract icy slopes of Group of Seven Lawren Harris or huge desert florals of American Georgia O'Keefe.
Highly offensive to state as fact the out-dated diagnosis of hysteria, spinster frigidity, after documented distressing drastic pain in head and elsewhere ("headache" mis-labels intense agony that drove at least Virginia Woolf to suicide, proven symptom of inflammatory disorder lupus) treated with electro-shock, fad diets leading to such obesity that eventually contributed to heart and stroke circulatory death.
The generally hostile youngest of five girls demanded attention, and basked in regular walks with religious papa who died suffering severe gout (toes burning scalded, swollen ready to explode, immobilized stuck solid, even one over-runs the pain meter, related to lupus). At puberty, he did an unspecified nasty, implies he may have waved his bits around and tried to demonstrate the facts of life, but could have just verbally outraged her Victorian proprieties. Secrecy increases criminal possibilities. She set back her own education, repeatedly refused the third step in proscribed teaching regime - copy statues, fruit still life, life models - for decades.
I could re-read, understand more, and never tire of the visual stimulation. Years ago, I researched possible famous historical figures who may have had undiagnosed lupus, and remember significant points. Overall, she loved animals, pets or children who provided unequivocal devotion, hated people. Copious letters could pour out lavish affection, but longest relationships were with Indians or cripples she could put on stereotypical Victorian condescending pedestal - supposedly simple, pure of heart, close to Nature and God. She obsessed on published negative criticism, denigrated praise, and did her rejecting first, before cause, especially sisters, even Alice who gave and forgave mortgage. Selfish, unpleasant, incredibly talented, poverty led to innovation - house paint and turpentine on paper instead of tiny oil tubes on canvas, local river clay for Indian motif pottery touristy gimcracks - would like to see larger images elsewhere.
http://www.ecuad.ca/programs/undergra...
http://bcheritage.ca/emilycarrhomewor...
http://bcheritage.ca/emilycarrhomewor...
Describes autobiography as non-sequential anecdotes not always complimentary to targets but entertaining for reader; sounds like later Agatha Christie's.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I will undoubtedly read more about Emily, just to get swept away in her swirling woods. Tippett is readable, thorough, extensive, detailed. But keep in mind tabloid reporters' fact-checker mantra "observer claims". Biographer is no more credible than sources. She does not rate their accuracy. From context, some balance can be guessed. For example, Carr complains about 'cigarette stinks' and vomit 'sick' stench, but was herself a smoking addict and nauseated at sea p178. From photos p16, cover, more, Carr looks lovely - large eyes, luscious lips, elegant cheeckbones, trim chin, slim figure - yet considered herself dumpy, dowdy, even before weight gain and careless self-neglect of appearance. Depression and years before government subsidy were rough on everyone. Women suffered most, dependent on friends and relatives. Yet resourceful Carr survived - taught, sold pictures, writing, dogs, rented rooms - little generosity recorded, editor inherited more than sister.
Images: http://aneyespy.blogspot.ca/2012/06/b...
118 illustrations (many color), excellent index broken down into people, pictures, exhibitions, travels, 22 pg references
1871-1945 Victoria British Columbia, studied in Paris and England despite seasickness enroute, produced incredibly emotionally and physically moving deep green forests and totem record. Impressive research from artist's journals, notebooks, correspondence, interviews, other books, set beside timely photographs, some, like Blunden Harbor p179, obviously the basis p164. Her work clearly responded to influences; dated text next to sweeping abstract icy slopes of Group of Seven Lawren Harris or huge desert florals of American Georgia O'Keefe.
Highly offensive to state as fact the out-dated diagnosis of hysteria, spinster frigidity, after documented distressing drastic pain in head and elsewhere ("headache" mis-labels intense agony that drove at least Virginia Woolf to suicide, proven symptom of inflammatory disorder lupus) treated with electro-shock, fad diets leading to such obesity that eventually contributed to heart and stroke circulatory death.
The generally hostile youngest of five girls demanded attention, and basked in regular walks with religious papa who died suffering severe gout (toes burning scalded, swollen ready to explode, immobilized stuck solid, even one over-runs the pain meter, related to lupus). At puberty, he did an unspecified nasty, implies he may have waved his bits around and tried to demonstrate the facts of life, but could have just verbally outraged her Victorian proprieties. Secrecy increases criminal possibilities. She set back her own education, repeatedly refused the third step in proscribed teaching regime - copy statues, fruit still life, life models - for decades.
I could re-read, understand more, and never tire of the visual stimulation. Years ago, I researched possible famous historical figures who may have had undiagnosed lupus, and remember significant points. Overall, she loved animals, pets or children who provided unequivocal devotion, hated people. Copious letters could pour out lavish affection, but longest relationships were with Indians or cripples she could put on stereotypical Victorian condescending pedestal - supposedly simple, pure of heart, close to Nature and God. She obsessed on published negative criticism, denigrated praise, and did her rejecting first, before cause, especially sisters, even Alice who gave and forgave mortgage. Selfish, unpleasant, incredibly talented, poverty led to innovation - house paint and turpentine on paper instead of tiny oil tubes on canvas, local river clay for Indian motif pottery touristy gimcracks - would like to see larger images elsewhere.
http://www.ecuad.ca/programs/undergra...
http://bcheritage.ca/emilycarrhomewor...
http://bcheritage.ca/emilycarrhomewor...
Describes autobiography as non-sequential anecdotes not always complimentary to targets but entertaining for reader; sounds like later Agatha Christie's.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
I will undoubtedly read more about Emily, just to get swept away in her swirling woods. Tippett is readable, thorough, extensive, detailed. But keep in mind tabloid reporters' fact-checker mantra "observer claims". Biographer is no more credible than sources. She does not rate their accuracy. From context, some balance can be guessed. For example, Carr complains about 'cigarette stinks' and vomit 'sick' stench, but was herself a smoking addict and nauseated at sea p178. From photos p16, cover, more, Carr looks lovely - large eyes, luscious lips, elegant cheeckbones, trim chin, slim figure - yet considered herself dumpy, dowdy, even before weight gain and careless self-neglect of appearance. Depression and years before government subsidy were rough on everyone. Women suffered most, dependent on friends and relatives. Yet resourceful Carr survived - taught, sold pictures, writing, dogs, rented rooms - little generosity recorded, editor inherited more than sister.
Images: http://aneyespy.blogspot.ca/2012/06/b...
July 3, 2019
Maria Tippett finds the right balance between biography and art criticism in this very readable account of Emily Carr’s life. Tippett shows that Carr was a complex and often difficult person and provides useful explanatory background about her extremely controlling family. I appreciated the author’s clear eyed observation that a number of Carr’s works that hang today in museums are actually fairly mediocre after having had the same thought myself; her best ones, though, are in my opinion reminiscent of Georgia O’Keefe while at the same time, like O’Keefe’s work, intensely of her surroundings. When I finished the book I found myself wishing that Carr had made some better decisions, including sticking to figure drawing and spending more time with better teachers, but given the time and place in which she lived it was remarkable that she succeeded both in making a career as an artist and producing some really fine works.
January 4, 2014
As an artist myself and one who lives near Victoria where Emily Carr lived, I found this book a fascinating read. The book presents a troubling and sad portrait of a woman who felt passionate about painting (and writing) with success eluding her for a greater part of her life. When she finally started to receive recognition her health and vitality were on the decline though her artistic passion remained strong to the end as her writings attest. This book left me with a much greater appreciation and respect for one of our Canadian treasures.
August 6, 2013
What a sad story of a woman who just couldn't get along with the world. She worked so hard just to make a living and in the end it was her writing not her art which gave her a bit of sense of acheivement. Another Canadian goes through the trials.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews