Sold for: $325,250

PROVENANCE
A wedding gift from the Artist to a Private Collection, Victoria, 1936
By descent to the present Private Collection, Alberta

LITERATURE
Emily Carr, The Complete Writings of Emily Carr, 1993, page 735

In the 1930s, Emily Carr’s painting evolved into a more open and expansive treatment of the landscape, facilitated by her new medium of oil on paper. She also turned her attention to sky and beach subjects. After one of her beach rambles, she expressed her exultation, writing, “The beach was sublime this morning…..the air and the sea and the earth were on good terms, and made little caressing sounds.” This light-filled painting is a superb example of Carr’s beachscapes, in which transparent oil washes effortlessly describe sea, shore and sky. Carr builds a rhythm through every element, from the curve of the beach to the arch of the sky, in one continuous movement of life energy.

The mother of the current consignor of this painting was a friend of Carr who would drive her to sketching sites on Vancouver Island. While Carr painted, she would look after her monkey Woo. Among Carr’s menagerie of pets, Woo was notorious for her mischievousness and curiosity - she once ate a whole tube of aureolin yellow paint, but miraculously survived. Carr included hilarious stories about Woo's antics in her book The Heart of a Peacock.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars