A 1940 oil painting by Emily Carr (1871-1945) that has not been on public display for nearly 60 years was unveiled today by Michael Audain, President of the Audain Foundation, at a press conference in Vancouver. Audain and his wife Yoshiko Karasawa provided the funds for the painting, Survival, which will be acquired by the Audain Art Museum in Whistler, British Columbia. It was purchased via a private sale from a collector in Thailand, where Audain owns a home. It will enter the permanent collection of the museum and will be exhibited there from next month.
“I was drawn to this important painting because of the subject matter, the late period of its work, and its distinguished provenance,” Audain said. “I felt it was important for Yoshiko and I to donate the funds so that the Audain Art Museum could acquire this work, as it should definitely be returned to the west coast of Canada.”
Curtis Collins, director and chief curator of the museum, added:Survival brilliantly echoes Carr’s longstanding effort to evoke human emotions through highly charged renderings. [British Columbia’s] forests.”
Survivalwas one of four works by Carr featured in Canada’s debut at the 1952 Venice Biennale, thanks to her support from Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris. Indian Churchrenamed Yuquot Church (1929), now in the Art Gallery of Ontario; And Blunden Harbor (1930) and deforested hill (circa 1940), both now in the National Gallery of Canada. Survival was Carr’s only work from the Biennale presentation still in private hands and had previously belonged to JE Coyne, the second Governor of the Bank of Canada.
The Venice Biennale exhibition was curated seven years after Carr’s death and proved a posthumous triumph for an artist who remained largely unrecognized during her lifetime. As curator Lisa Baldissera noted in her book Emily Carr: life and work“This representation of Canada on the world contemporary art scene was a pivotal moment in its understanding of itself as a modern, industrializing nation. It was time for Canada to take its rightful place as an independent global entity that had distinguished itself from its role as a colony of Britain during the two world wars. Emily Carr’s work in particular was chosen for her fusion of national identity with a new vision of landscape painting.
The title of the painting – which depicts a lonely old tree surrounded by clear-cut debris, twisted and broken but still provocative – is as much an expression of Carr’s prescient ecological concerns as a commentary on her own resilience. She faced poverty, antagonism from her family and widespread indifference to her work during her lifetime, but became one of Canada’s most famous and iconic artists. “It’s important for Canada to have cultural heroes,” Audain said, “and I’m glad Emily Carr has become one of them.
This acquisition increases the influence of the Audain Museum as one of the most important collections of Carr’s work, after the Royal BC Museum, which houses nearly 500 works and hundreds of ephemeral archives, and the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), which houses one of the most important Carr collections in the world.
At today’s conference, Audain announced future collaborations with the VAG, whose director Anthony Kiendel was also in attendance. Kiendel later said The arts journal that there will be a dedicated Carr gallery and research center in the The new VAG building—which inaugurates this spring, should open in 2027 and towards which the Audain Foundation donated C$100 million ($80 million).
Audain also revealed that his eponymous museum had acquired a 1928 work by Lawren Harris, Mountain sketchwhich will also be exhibited there next month.
