Historical watercolour painting by Emily Carr acquired by Whistler’s Audain Art Museum
Unveiled at Heffel Fine Art Auction House, War Canoes, Alert Bay, circa 1908, was held for many years in private collections
Emily Carr (1871-1945), War Canoes, Alert Bay, circa 1908, watercolour on paper, Audain Art Museum collection, Acquired with funds from Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa.
AUDAIN ART MUSEUM has acquired a historical watercolour painting by revered British Columbia artist Emily Carr. War Canoes, Alert Bay, created circa 1908, was held for many years in private collections.
Unveiled at the Heffel Fine Art Auction House, it was paired with an iconic oil on canvas of the same name from 1912 from the Whistler museum’s permanent collection, signifying the reunion of two closely related Carr masterworks.
The newly acquired watercolour features a scene with three dugout canoes in the foreground, each bearing distinctive Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw-inspired imagery. The work exemplifies Carr’s early traditional style and features the sombre light of the Northwest Coast, with a hillside and trees in the background.
Likely first shown in Vancouver in 1913, the watercolour has since been featured in every major exhibition of Carr’s work to date, including the Audain Art Museum’s 2019 show, Fresh Seeing, which explored a transformational period of her career.
Emily Carr (1871-1945), War Canoes, Alert Bay, 1912, oil on canvas, Audain Art Museum collection, Gift of Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa.
Carr studied in France from 1910 to 1911 and was deeply influenced by her exposure to Post-Impressionism and Fauvism abroad. This pivotal period inspired a departure from the conservative art traditions she had previously gleaned in England and the United States. Upon her return home, Carr reworked the watercolour’s scene into her larger-scale 1912 oil painting, incorporating the vigorous visual language and “new way of seeing” she had cultivated in France. Her expressive use of bold colour and vivid brushwork was unconventional for its time.
Despite her current prominence, Carr struggled to gain critical acceptance as an artist throughout her lifetime. In 2000, the oil-on-canvas War Canoes, Alert Bay became the first work by a Canadian female painter to sell for over a million dollars at auction, setting a monumental record and establishing a clear marker of Carr’s impact on Canadian art.
Both masterpieces will be on display at the Audain Art Museum beginning October 17. 
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