Emily Carr’s impact on Canadian art lies in her bold, modern vision that wove together the raw beauty of the West Coast landscape with deep respect for Indigenous cultures. Although she struggled for recognition during her lifetime, her paintings have since become cultural treasures, influencing generations of artists to see the Canadian landscape not just as scenery, but as a living, breathing presence.
Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia, on December 13, 1871, at 44 Carr Street (now Government Street). Her family’s two-storey home—now a museum—was proper and British, traits that young Emily, (unlike her eight siblings who enjoyed sewing and taking afternoon tea) resisted from the start, preferring to roam the local woods and beaches with her sketchpad in hand.
At eighteen, Carr left for California to study classical drawing and still life, returning home just three years later. However, she soon felt the pull of further education; so at twenty-seven, she crossed the Atlantic to study in Europe, where she would absorb the vivid colours and free brushwork style of Post-Impressionism. It was a bold departure from the prim watercolours favoured at home.
While visiting sister Alice in Alaska in 1907, (documented in her book “Sister and I in Alaska”) Carr encountered the totems of the Tlingit people; a discovery that undoubtedly inspired her 1912 journey to First Nations' villages in Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), the Upper Skeena River, and Alert Bay. It was on this journey that she documented the art of the Haida, Gitxsan and Tsimshian on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Carr painted totem poles, longhouses, and forested landscapes in a unique way; not as static relics, but as living expressions of cultural vitality. While some Indigenous families welcomed her respect and curiosity, others, cautious of outsiders, took time to warm to her. Gradually, her persistence and genuine admiration earned her trust and access.
Emily Carr, Cumshewa, 1912
Carr’s paintings rarely earned her a living during her lifetime, and she often supported herself through teaching, breeding dogs, and running a boarding house nicknamed, “The House of All Sorts” in Victoria (Her financial reality was a far cry from her posthumous success: in 2022, her 1939 painting Swirl sold for $3.6 million).
Still struggling to sell her work in her early fifties, Emily bought a caravan and converted it into a mobile studio. Painted grey and nicknamed The Elephant, the caravan allowed her to live for weeks in the forest with only her dog, Billie, and her monkey, Woo, for company. The quiet and solitude suited her perfectly; in fact, the wilderness became-and was-her true studio and home.
At sixty-five, Carr suffered a heart attack, followed by strokes that forced her to slow down. Turning her creative energy to writing, she published Klee Wyck (a Governor General’s Award winner, 1941), The Book of Small (1942), The House of All Sorts (1944), and her autobiography Growing Pains, published posthumously in 1946.
Emily Carr died on March 2, 1945, at seventy-three, in St. Mary’s Priory (the current James Bay Inn), a care facility just one block from her birthplace. In a sense, her life had come full circle by finishing up in the city, and block where it all began.
Victoria has a soft spot for Emily Carr, and has fondly dedicated many memorials to her. These include a mural at the intersection of Fort and Quadra Streets, a larger-than-life statue (with her dog and monkey) in the Inner Harbour, and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (1040 Moss Street) which boasts one of the largest Emily Carr collections in the world.
Emily Carr Statue, outside of the Empress Hotel in the Inner Harbour
Emily Carr once wrote, “It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw, not because she is Canada but because she’s something sublime that you were born into, some great rugged power that you are a part of.”
I, for one, think she was onto something.
To learn more about Emily Carr or visit some of her old haunts, why not join us on a HIDDEN VICTORIA Iconic and Obscure Tour? Our passionate guides will share local history and answer all your questions about Victoria! For more information, CLICK HERE.