Emily Carr
BCSFA CGP
1871 - 1945
Canadian
Trunks on a Hill-Top
oil on paper on board
signed with the estate stamp and on verso titled on the gallery label, inscribed with the Dominion inventory #A 178 and variously and stamped Dominion Gallery
18 x 24 1/4 in, 45.7 x 61.6 cm
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Estate of the Artist, Victoria
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby’s, Toronto, June 16, 1998, lot 198
Private Collection, Ontario
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario
The 1930s saw Emily Carr enter a creative renaissance, spurred by two important developments in her practice. The first was her choice of materials: she worked on paper and thinned her oil paint with gasoline, attempts at economy that nevertheless facilitated expression, promoting fluidity of application and richness of tone while providing the portability and speed of watercolours. The second development was her purchase in 1933 of The Elephant, a caravan that became a mobile studio, allowing her access to the forests and coasts around Victoria and Vancouver Island. This painting, kept in the artist’s estate, was likely produced during this pivotal time in Carr’s life and practice.
What is most interesting about Trunks on a Hill-Top is Carr’s use of pink pigment. She had first used this colour during her travels in Brittany in 1910 to 1911, when she was introduced to more adventurous palettes through the work of the Fauvists and Post-Impressionists. The influence on her practice was immediate, and the works following this period attained the brilliance of colour and purity of tone that would come to characterize Carr’s best paintings.
But where we can mark her increased use of lush ultramarines and vivid greens on her return to the West Coast, she seemed to use pink less frequently—maybe for the simple reason that this colour occurs more naturally on the sun-dappled fields of northern France than in the forests of the Pacific. When it does appear, pink is usually relegated to a highlight colour or a background element, though often deployed to blazing effect. This is perhaps most eloquently demonstrated in Carr’s masterpiece The Crazy Stair (sold by Heffel in November 2013, now in the collection of the Audain Art Museum), completed in 1928 – 1931 but first sketched by the artist in 1912, in the summer after her return from France. In that work, the swirling greens and weighty browns of the hillside are backed by a large building rendered in a searing pink, producing a theatricality that captures the essence of the scene as she felt it.
In Trunks on a Hill-Top, pink takes centre stage, darting across the paper and fanning out across the sky. A tangle of fallen trees is rendered in the same tones, bright against the green of the hillside and the darkened shadows of its hollows. The exact geography of the subject here is kept relatively ambiguous. Certainly the composition feels similar to Carr’s sketches of the Vancouver Island coasts: the broad, concave curving of the hill seeming to trace the arc of a shoreline, while the darkening blues of the lower registers recall the waves and seascapes observed in other works. Read this way, the tangle of fallen trees takes on the bleached aspect of driftwood, emphasized by peeling bark and ravelled roots highlighted in pure white pigment. At the same time, the fallen trunks and barren hilltop immediately recall the cleared land and devastated forests resulting from the BC logging industry, a subject that Carr was exploring around this time and most effectively rendered in her remarkable 1935 canvas Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky (collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery).
In either context, Carr’s expansive approach presents here a dramatic and uplifting view of the BC coast, with the radiating sky and fluid ground seeming to merge with shimmering effect. Rendered with gestural immediacy, Carr’s raw and energetic landscapes from this period reflect the visceral conviction of the artist’s mature vision. Listen Stop
Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.
BCSFA CGP
1871 - 1945
Canadian
Trunks on a Hill-Top
oil on paper on board
signed with the estate stamp and on verso titled on the gallery label, inscribed with the Dominion inventory #A 178 and variously and stamped Dominion Gallery
18 x 24 1/4 in, 45.7 x 61.6 cm
Preview at: Heffel Toronto – 13 Hazelton Ave
PROVENANCE
Estate of the Artist, Victoria
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Toronto
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby’s, Toronto, June 16, 1998, lot 198
Private Collection, Ontario
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario
The 1930s saw Emily Carr enter a creative renaissance, spurred by two important developments in her practice. The first was her choice of materials: she worked on paper and thinned her oil paint with gasoline, attempts at economy that nevertheless facilitated expression, promoting fluidity of application and richness of tone while providing the portability and speed of watercolours. The second development was her purchase in 1933 of The Elephant, a caravan that became a mobile studio, allowing her access to the forests and coasts around Victoria and Vancouver Island. This painting, kept in the artist’s estate, was likely produced during this pivotal time in Carr’s life and practice.
What is most interesting about Trunks on a Hill-Top is Carr’s use of pink pigment. She had first used this colour during her travels in Brittany in 1910 to 1911, when she was introduced to more adventurous palettes through the work of the Fauvists and Post-Impressionists. The influence on her practice was immediate, and the works following this period attained the brilliance of colour and purity of tone that would come to characterize Carr’s best paintings.
But where we can mark her increased use of lush ultramarines and vivid greens on her return to the West Coast, she seemed to use pink less frequently—maybe for the simple reason that this colour occurs more naturally on the sun-dappled fields of northern France than in the forests of the Pacific. When it does appear, pink is usually relegated to a highlight colour or a background element, though often deployed to blazing effect. This is perhaps most eloquently demonstrated in Carr’s masterpiece The Crazy Stair (sold by Heffel in November 2013, now in the collection of the Audain Art Museum), completed in 1928 – 1931 but first sketched by the artist in 1912, in the summer after her return from France. In that work, the swirling greens and weighty browns of the hillside are backed by a large building rendered in a searing pink, producing a theatricality that captures the essence of the scene as she felt it.
In Trunks on a Hill-Top, pink takes centre stage, darting across the paper and fanning out across the sky. A tangle of fallen trees is rendered in the same tones, bright against the green of the hillside and the darkened shadows of its hollows. The exact geography of the subject here is kept relatively ambiguous. Certainly the composition feels similar to Carr’s sketches of the Vancouver Island coasts: the broad, concave curving of the hill seeming to trace the arc of a shoreline, while the darkening blues of the lower registers recall the waves and seascapes observed in other works. Read this way, the tangle of fallen trees takes on the bleached aspect of driftwood, emphasized by peeling bark and ravelled roots highlighted in pure white pigment. At the same time, the fallen trunks and barren hilltop immediately recall the cleared land and devastated forests resulting from the BC logging industry, a subject that Carr was exploring around this time and most effectively rendered in her remarkable 1935 canvas Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky (collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery).
In either context, Carr’s expansive approach presents here a dramatic and uplifting view of the BC coast, with the radiating sky and fluid ground seeming to merge with shimmering effect. Rendered with gestural immediacy, Carr’s raw and energetic landscapes from this period reflect the visceral conviction of the artist’s mature vision. Listen Stop
Estimate: $70,000 - $90,000 CAD
All prices are in Canadian Dollars
Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information posted, errors and omissions may occur. All bids are subject to our Terms and Conditions of Business. Bidders must ensure they have satisfied themselves with the condition of the Lot prior to bidding. Condition reports are available upon request.
