Nirvana, circa 1930

Collection of the Artist Major Holmes, Victoria, B.C. Cecily Thompson (daughter of Major Holmes), Victoria Sotheby's Canada, auction, Toronto, 6 November 1991, lot 65 as “Totem Poles/Nirvana” Private Collection

“The Paintings of Charles Burchfield: North by Midwest”, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; travelling to Burchfield‒Penney Art Center, Buffalo, 23 March 1997‒17 August 1997 “Emily Carr (1871‒1945) Retrospective Exhibition”, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal, 14‒18 September 2002, no. 15 “This Museum Lasts One Night, Pop Up Museum”, Canadian Friends of the Israel Museum, Toronto, 13 August 2019

Sotheby's Canada, “Important Canadian Art”, 6 November 1991, Toronto, unpaginated, reproduced; also reproduced on the back outside cover “The Paintings of Charles Burchfield: North by Midwest”, Ohio, 1997, reproduced page 17 “Magazin’Art 12:1” (Fall 1999), reproduced page 135 “Etcetera”, 11 September 2002, reproduced page 13 “Emily Carr (1871‒1945) Retrospective Exhibition”, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal, September 2002, no. 15, reproduced page 7

Emily Carr first became interested in depicting the totemic art of the Indigenous peoples of British Columbia’s Pacific coast during a trip to Alaska with her sister Alice in 1907. Carr was deeply moved by the poles that she saw on that journey and journeyed north in both 1908 and 1909 to depict them. She realized however that her training in London and San Francisco had not equipped her with the artistic tools to depict the poles in a way that pleased her. In her quest to gain the technique necessary to depict these poles to her satisfaction, she travelled to France in the fall of 1910 and spent much of 1911 training with three expatriate artists – John Duncan Fergusson, Harry Phelan Gibb and Frances Hodgkins. Each of these teachers encouraged Carr to paint in a manner influenced by the ideas of both the Impressionists and post‒Impressionists. Hodgkins was particularly important in freeing up Carr’s approach to the use of watercolour. In 1912, following her return to Canada from France, Carr again visited northern British Columbia and began a serious campaign to depict the poles she saw in a new, more modern manner. Key amongst her 1912 visits was time spent on Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands) and the deserted village of Tanoo (now T’anuu). Carr produced several sketches on the spot and these en‒plein‒air sketches were used to produce more finished watercolours and canvases in her studio. She held a major exhibition of these works in Vancouver in 1913. Among them is a superb 1912 watercolour “Tanoo” (now in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection). The 1912 works and the exhibition itself were received less enthusiastically than Carr had hoped for but, in 1927, these paintings were shown in the “Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art Native and Modern”, held at the National Gallery of Canada (and subsequently shown in Montreal and Toronto). This important exhibition introduced Carr to the larger Canadian art world and marked the beginning of her association with Lawren Harris and other members of the Group of Seven. The enthusiasm that Harris (and others) expressed for Carr’s totemic work encouraged her to return to painting (which she had largely abandoned between 1913 and 1927) and, the following year, 1928, Carr returned to northern BC to paint the totems she so admired. Carr also re‒examined the work from 1912 and she revisited some of the watercolours and sketches as source‒material for canvases in the early thirties. One of the most notable examples is her use of “Cumshewa”, 1912 (National Gallery of Canada) as the source for “Big Raven,” 1931 (Vancouver Art Gallery). Carr also revisited Tanoo but unlike the pairing of the watercolour “Cumshewa” and the canvas, “Big Raven”, she employed oil on paper as an intermediary step between the watercolour and the final canvas, “Nirvana” (formerly in the collection of Charles Band, now in a private collection). Carr had begun using oil on paper as her primary sketching medium in the early 1930s (unfortunately most of these works are undated), and many but not all were conceived of as source material for canvases rather than works of art in themselves. The oil on paper sketch, “Nirvana”, circa 1930, is highly unusual within Carr’s oeuvre. Rather than working directly from the motif, she worked from the 1912 watercolour, “Tanoo”. This seems to be the only time in Carr’s career that she took this approach. Nirvana is also the only known example of an oil on paper with totemic subject matter. “Nirvana”, among Carr’s earliest oil on paper sketches, was done at the time of “Untitled” (Forest Interior, black, grey and white), circa 1930 (Vancouver Art Gallery), when Carr was exploring the role of oil on paper sketches in her work. This may explain both the unique subject matter and the fact that Nirvana is based, not on direct observation, but on the 1912 watercolour. The exploration of this trilogy of depictions of the two T’anuu poles is fascinating. In the earliest depiction, the 1912 watercolour “Tanoo”, we see two Haida poles (both depicting ravens and eagles), rising from a sea of bushes, the poles set against a background of silhouetted trees. The two poles are placed in the middle distance, somewhat removed from the viewer. In the oil on paper, Nirvana, the setting of the poles has been radically altered. Here we see the right‒side pole brought up to the picture plane and the two poles are dramatically separated by the simplified tree‒forms which recall those seen in “Untitled” (Vancouver Art Gallery). The background is simplified into a curtain of brushstrokes which suggest but do not delineate a sky and forest. The oil paint, thinned with gasoline, has been quickly and decisively applied to the paper. There is a more substantial, volumetric quality to the image suggested by the more emphatic application of the paint. In the final canvas, “Nirvana”, circa 1930, Carr revisits the landscape setting, providing a much more descriptive background for the two poles. There is a village on a shoreline, backed by enormous trees. In the foreground, Carr has placed a swirling base of foliage from which the two poles rise. The placement of the poles within the composition has also shifted to the right. This allows her to introduce a shaft light into the middle ground of the work. Interestingly, the final canvas has rendered the poles as much less colourful, as if the poles were unpainted much as Carr was to do in “Big Raven”. All three of Carr’s depictions of the T’anuu poles are wonderful examples of her work. The oil on paper “Nirvana” is a fascinating and rare example of Carr’s use of the technique in a study of a totemic subject. These varied compositions reveal how engaged Carr was with this subject and how varied her approach to depicting them was. We extend our thanks to curator and art historian, Ian Thom, for his assistance in researching this artwork and for contributing the preceding essay.