Deep in the Forest, 1935

The Artist Arthur Lismer, 1936 Gordon MacNamara, Toronto, circa 1938 William Sayer Odon Wagner Purchased by the present Private Collection, December 1990

“Emily Carr: Her Paintings and Sketches”, Art Gallery of Toronto/ National Gallery of Canada, 19 October 1945‒26 May 1946, no. 162 as “Trees” (loaned by Gordon MacNamara) “Canadian Women Artists”, Riverside Museum, New York, 1947, no. 9 “Emily Carr Retrospective Exhibition”, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 2002, no, 16 “From the Forest to the Sea, Emily Carr in British Columbia”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 1 November 2014‒12 July 2015

“Emily Carr: Her Paintings and Sketches”, Art Gallery of Toronto/ National Gallery of Canada, 1945, no. 162, listed page 59 Edythe Hembroff‒Schleicher, “Emily Carr: The Untold Story”, Saanichton, 1978, pages 131‒132 “Emily Carr Retrospective Exhibition”, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, 2002. no. 16, reproduced page 6 “Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr”, Vancouver, 2006, page 264 Sarah Milroy and Ian Dejardin, “From the Forest to the Sea, Emily Carr in British Columbia”, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2014, reproduced page 70

Emily Carr’s profound connection to the natural world of British Columbia is evident in some of her earliest work. A 1909 watercolour, “Forest Scene” (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria), done before her training in France, shows a sensitivity to the natural world unusual for Canadian art of the period. Far from being repelled by the forest landscape, Carr embraces the scene, pulling the viewer into the natural world. Carr had worked outdoors, or “en plein air”, while training in England at the beginning of the twentieth century but little work survives from that period. It was while in France in 1911, training with William Phelan (Harry) Gibb (1870-1948) and others, that she really explored painting outdoors. The post-impressionist works, such as “Autumn in France”, 1911 (National Gallery of Canada), were influenced by Fauve-colours and have a lightness of touch that suggests Carr’s intense engagement with her subjects. Carr had gone to France to learn how to paint in a way that would allow her to tackle not the natural world but the First Nations subjects of British Columbia. These French lessons are seen in the great 1912 canvases, such as “Totem Poles, Kitseukla” (Vancouver Art Gallery), first seen by Group of Seven artists Lawren Harris and Arthur Lismer in 1927 in the exhibition, “Canadian West Coast Art: Native and Modern”, at the National Gallery of Canada. The 1912 canvases were done in Carr’s studio, based on studies (mostly in watercolour) done in the field. Her focus, however, was not on the landscape itself but rather the totemic forms of the First Nations people. The natural world played a subsidiary role in these works. In the early 1930s, Carr, at the suggestion of Lawren Harris, turned her attention away from the totemic subjects back to the natural world. At the same period, she adopted a new sketching method. Rather than watercolour she began using oil paint, thinned with gasoline, on sheets of wood-pulp paper. This new approach had the advantage of great portability, very important when sketching outdoors; the materials were low in cost; and the thinned paint allowed Carr the freedoms of watercolour in a more robust medium. Initially, Carr conceived of oil on papers as studies for larger studio canvases but soon realized that these works were complete in their own right. She could go into her beloved forest, paint directly and convey her real experience of the natural world. Carr’s body of oil on paper works is one of the great treasures of Canadian painting. Carr brought an immediacy and realism to her depictions of the forest landscape that continues to resonate with viewers long after her death. As Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher has documented, Carr went sketching in the Metchosin (Albert Head) region, west of Victoria, in June and September of 1935. It is likely that Deep in the Forest was done on the second of these trips. Carr writes vividly of her painting experience in “Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr”. “Sketching in the big woods is wonderful. You go, find a space wide enough to sit in and clear enough so that the undergrowth is not drowning you. Then, being elderly, you spread your camp stool and sit and look around. “Don’t see much here.” “Wait.” Out comes a cigarette. The mosquitoes back away from the smoke. Everything is green. Everything is waiting and still. Slowly things begin to move, to slip into their places. Groups and masses and lines tie themselves together. Colours you had not noticed come out, timidly or boldly. In and out, in and out your eye passes. Nothing is crowded; there is living space for all. Air moves between each leaf. Sunlight plays and dances. Nothing is still now. Light is sweeping through the spaces. Everything is alive. The air is alive. The silence is full of sound. The green is full of colour. Light and dark chase each other. Here is a picture, a complete thought...” Carr might be describing “Deep in the Forest”. The light does sweep “through the spaces” and a rich variety of colour animates the trunks of the trees. “Nothing is still” but there is a sense of peace and spirituality. The section of Carr’s journals quoted above is titled “A Tabernacle in the Woods”‒a phrase that aptly describes our experience of this image. We join Carr in experiencing the vitality, sanctity and wonder of the natural world. Somehow it seems fitting that the first owner of this work was Arthur Lismer, who in the 1950s turned his attention to depicting the coastal forests of British Columbia, undoubtedly with memories of Carr’s work in his mind. “Deep in the Forest” is a superb example of Carr’s natural world. It is little wonder that the work was included in the memorial exhibition, “Emily Carr: Her Paintings and Sketches”, mounted just seven months after her death in 1945, at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. We extend our thanks to curator and art historian, Ian Thom, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.