Kitzeukela, Community House

Emily Carr had a keen interest in the life and ways of the Northwest Coast Native peoples. Between 1907 and 1913, she visited many villages, bringing back more than two hundred paintings that document the art and activities of their inhabitants and illustrate her desire to grasp the “spirit” of their culture. Close to fifteen years later, her acquaintance with ethnologist Marius Barbeau resulted in twenty-six of her works being included in the famous exhibition Canadian West Coast Art – Native and Modern that was organized by him and presented at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 1927, and at the Art Association of Montreal (today’s Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) in 1928. Always at pains to be accurate and faithful in her depictions, Carr was never insensitive to her position as an observer or unconscious of the fact that her transposition of these vanishing traditions represented a highly personal vision.