In 1911, Emily Carr returned from a sixteen-month trip to France with a
new understanding of French Modernism and a radically transformed
painting style, one that broke free from the artistic shackles of her
conservative training and embraced a new means of expression. Her studio
experiences in Paris, her en plein-air painting in the French
countryside, and her encounters with such artists as expatriate English
painter William Henry Phelan Gibb, Scottish painter John Duncan
Fergusson, and New Zealand watercolourist Frances Hodgkins had a
profound impact on her work. Emily Carr: Fresh Seeing focuses on the
dramatic changes in her painting style, showcasing the paintings,
drawings, and watercolours that she produced in France, as well as the
works she created upon her return to the West Coast of Canada in 1912.
The text of her 1930 speech "Fresh Seeing," in which Carr sought to
explain Modern art to her baffled public, is included alongside an essay
by writer and critic Robin Laurence. Also featured are essays by Carr
scholar Kathryn Bridge, who examines the artist's travels and studies
with post-Impressionist artists in Paris, Crécy-en-Brie, St. Efflam, and
Concarneau; collector Michael Polay, who details the inclusion of two of
Carr's paintings in the famed Salon d'Automne alongside pieces by Marcel
Duchamp, Pierre Bonnard, and many other internationally renowned
artists; and the Audain Art Museum's Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky
Curator, Kiriko Watanabe, who recounts Carr's return to the West Coast
and the paintings that resulted from her ambitious sketching expeditions
to the Upper Skeena River, Haida Gwaii, and Alert Bay in the summer of
1912.
