PROVENANCE
Estate of the Artist
Acquired from the above by Major Cuthbert Holmes, Vancouver Island
By descent through the family to a Private Collection, Vancouver Island
Acquired as a gift by Brentwood College School, Vancouver Island
Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 25, 2006, lot 117
The Art Emporium, Vancouver
A.K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Private Collection, Victoria

During the 1930s, Emily Carr turned away from the subject matter that had led to her initial successes as a painter. At the urging of Lawren Harris and others, Carr turned her attention more to the landscape. With the use of oil on paper she was able to sketch directly in the forest itself with a medium that allowed her a great deal of freedom and which had a greater authority and power than watercolour. Through thinning the oil paint with gasoline, she was able to work quickly but also obtain a richer chromatic range than was possible in the watercolour medium.

While we are unsure of where Deep Forest Path was executed, it perhaps dates from a trip that she took in the summer of 1938, when she rented a cottage on the property of the Godfrey family on Telegraph Bay Road, near Victoria. Taking the first real trip away from home since her heart attack in January of 1937, Carr was delighted to have the opportunity to sketch again, and the paintings from the summer of 1938 have a sense of joy and freedom to them. Here, Carr has returned to immerse herself and the viewer in the forest. For Carr the natural world was deeply spiritual, imbued with the presence of God, and this work clearly reflects this aspect of Carr’s beliefs. There is a sense that we are making a journey down the nave of a great cathedral as the eye passes down the central pathway in this painting. The trees become great columns and an almost ethereal light illuminates the centre of the composition. This is as much a painting about the spirit as it is about nature, and undoubtedly for Carr, in works such as Deep Forest Path, the two have become one.

Inscribed on verso by Colin Graham, Director Emeritus, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, February 24, 1981:

I certify that this painting in oil on paper is by Emily Carr. I have been personally present when the original purchaser, Major Cuthbert Holmes, bought the bulk of his works by Carr from the Carr Estate, her executor Lawren Harris officiating. The other Carrs in Major Holmes’ collection were purchased directly from the artist.

Cuthbert Holmes was the co-founder of Brentwood College School of Mill Bay, Vancouver Island. The inscription “To Pip, from Pops” refers to Holmes’s son Pip.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars