Emily Carr, a renowned Canadian Expressionist artist & writer, was born on December 13, 1871, in Victoria, a small and isolated town of British Columbia.
She was brought up in a middle class environment.
Her father, a merchant, commissioned a house, which is now named after her as Emily Carr House.
Carr's parents died, when she was in her teens.
After the incident, Carr moved to San Francisco.
There, at the age of eighteen, she enrolled in the California School of Design to study arts.
In 1893, Emily Carr, also known as "Canadian Icon," returned to her hometown Victoria, and started taking classes for children.
Emily created a studio in her home where she studied and practiced art.
After some years, in 1899, Carr moved to England for further studies.
She took admission in Westminster School of Arts in London, but could not stay there for long due to illness.
In the search of better locations and climate, she then went to the various parts of England to return to San Francisco eventually in 1905.
During her travel, Carr's visit to a mission school in Vancouver highlighted her work for the first time in 1899.
In 1910, she studied art for a year at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.
In 1912, Emily settled back in British Columbia permanently.
Throughout this traveling transition, different cultures, communities, and the landscapes of the Pacific North-west continued to influence Carr's artwork heavily.
Owing to her Post-impressionism and Fauvism styles of paintings, mainly based on nature and natives, Emily and her art though remained unrecognized to the world and the other bigger artists of that time for long.
Disappointed by the apathy of the world towards her artwork, in her early 40s, she gave up painting and took up pottery for living.
Later, Carr also worked as a dog breeder and a boarding house property owner.
In 1920s, Emily Carr met the leading Canadian art group of that time, 'Group of Seven.
' It so happened when the Director of the National Gallery of Canada, Mr.
Eric Brown, invited Carr to participate in an exhibition, "Canadian West Coast Art, Native and Modern," in Ontario in the year 1927, after an ethnologist referred Carr's name to him.
There, with the help of Lawrren Harris, a member of the 'Group of Seven,' Carr submitted her work the exhibition.
Due to her passionate, original, strong, and mature work, the artists at the show promptly accepted her work.
Soon after the 'Group of Seven' invited to Emily Carr to participate in a Group of Seven exhibition.
This was the beginning of Emily's direct association with the group, which proved out to be a turning point for her painting career.
After five years, the group named Emily the 'Mother of Modern Arts.
' She was the first artist to reflect the Canadian spirit through her paintings.
Carr participated in an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in 1937.
She was honored here.
At Vancouver Art Gallery too, in 1938, Emily Carr held a very successful presentation.
In 1937, due to a series of heart attacks, she took up writing to give vent to her creativity.
Carr was bedridden for the rest of her life.
The 'Nuu-Chah-Nulth' community of Ucluelet, Vancouver Island had nicknamed Carr as 'Klee Wyck,' meaning, "the laughing one," on which Carr named her book.
Klee Wyck, released in 1941, was a book about her personal experiences with the natives of this island.
The book won the Governor General's Award in the year of its release.
Other than Klee Wyck, Carr also wrote, "The Book of Small (1942)," and "The House of all Sorts (1944).
" Emily Carr died on March 02, 1945.
Her three books, "Growing Pains (1946)," "Pause and The Heart of a Peacock (1953)," and "Hundreds and Thousands (1966), " were published posthumously.
In 1997, Mascall Dance created a dance piece titled, 'The Brutal Telling,' retelling her life.