Whistler, B.C.’s Audain Art Museum acquires Emily Carr painting

An art museum in Whistler, B.C., has announced it has acquired a watercolour painting from renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr.

The Audain Art Museum says War Canoes, Alert Bay, which was painted around 1908, will be paired with an oil painting of the same name that was painted around 1912.

The museum says the 1912 version of War Canoes, Alert Bay sold for over $1 million in 2000 — with the museum saying it was the first work from a Canadian female painter to fetch a price over a million dollars.

Carr was born in Victoria in 1871 and was closely associated with the renowned Group of Seven, which includes Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson.

Curtis Collins, chief curator of the museum, said the 1912 version of the painting was painted after Carr returned to Canada after studying in France from 1910 to 1911.

“You can see on her return she came back with a much brighter palette, you know, taking from the post-impressionist, the Fauves,” he said. “So it really speaks to her movement as an artist during that time.”

The watercolour painting, acquired from a private collector for an undisclosed sum, features three dugout canoes, and came from a period when Carr was aiming to depict the traditional art from First Nations on B.C.’s northwest coast.

“I think the time has come for Emily to get more international recognition and she has all the makings, I think, of an international superstar when it comes to her work,” said museum founder Michael Audain in an interview.

The two paintings were shown off on Wednesday at Heffel Fine Art Auction House in Vancouver — alongside Masset, Q.C.I., a Carr painting bought for $50 US at a barn sale in New York’s Hamptons that could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction. It is currently on display at the Heffel gallery until Oct. 21.

Both versions of War Canoes, Alert Bay will be on display at the Audain as part of its permanent collection starting Thursday.