Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> From the Forest to the Sea is that most wondrous of achievements realized by two institutions by two curators and with two somewhat varied lists of works across a great expanse of water with the common purpose of under- lining Emily Carr’s meaningful achievement. In England the exhibition has the added aim of introducing a new voice to an established history of art; in Canada the goal is to present Carr’s work in a decidedly new way to allow us to look at seemingly familiar works with fresh eyes. The exhibition grew from a shared interest in highlighting Carr’s work internationally and in finding a context in which it could be fully and uniquely understood. The seed was planted when prominent Toronto arts advocate Michael Koerner suggested that the Art Gallery of Ontario and Dulwich Picture Gallery might be fitting partners: the AGO’s collection includes several important Carr pieces while Dulwich had recently hosted the immensely successful exhibition Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven and sensed its audience would respond enthusiastically to Carr’s work. To co-curate the exhibition we enlisted the help of creative and incisive Canadian art critic Sarah Milroy who brought not only a fresh- ness of vision that matched her co-curator’s response to the Carr images but also a depth of knowledge about the broader Canadian artistic context and a passionate identification with the sense of place that drives Carr’s work. For everyone involved in the exhibition Garr’s legacy seemed an urgent calling. This urgency is perhaps felt now more than ever given our increas- ing sensitivity in the twenty-first century to the importance of land rights territory borders the identities within them and the growing self-affirma- tion of Aboriginal cultures around the world. While developing this show and book the AGO and Dulwich felt a common indebtedness to Carr as a thought pioneer who understood that being a Canadian worth the name meant reckoning respectfully with the realities expressions and histories of Indigenous people. (MP)