PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
Private Collection, Montreal
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby’s Canada, November 27, 2012, lot 98
A.K. Prakash & Associates Inc., Toronto
Private Collection, Nova Scotia

LITERATURE
Ian M. Thom, Emily Carr in France, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1991, titled as The French Knitter, mentioned page 30, reproduced page 41 and listed page 73

EXHIBITED
Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr in France, June 22 – September 22, 1991, titled as The French Knitter, catalogue #39

Emily Carr was born in Victoria, BC, in 1871. Although one of the most important cities in British Columbia, Victoria was unable to provide her with what she felt was adequate artistic training. Thus Carr began her artistic studies in 1890 in San Francisco, where she spent three years. Later she spent time in England training at the Westminster School of Art in London, and later St. Ives, Cornwall, and Hertfordshire. Unfortunately, her studies were derailed by a prolonged stay in a sanitarium, and she returned to Canada somewhat defeated in 1904.

In 1907, Carr and her sister made a trip to Alaska. Carr’s encounters with the totem poles of the Indigenous Peoples on the Northwest Coast were a revelation to her. She realized that she wanted to paint these impressive monuments and felt that her training had not given her a sufficiently robust tool box to do this subject matter justice. In 1910, Carr took herself to Paris for what was to be the most important period of her artistic training, working with several expatriate teachers—John Duncan Fergusson, Harry Phelan Gibb and Frances Mary Hodgkins. It was while training with Hodgkins that Carr switched her medium to watercolour, and she painted an important series of images of French women at their labours.

Woman Knitting — Repose #3 is one of these works. This vividly painted watercolour reveals to us Carr’s working method during her sojourn in France. While studying, she worked directly from her subjects. This situational approach to both landscape and human subjects is one of the chief characteristics of her French work. Here, we see a French peasant woman knitting a sock. The image has a remarkable immediacy because Carr is clearly working directly from her subject.

In common with many portraitists, Carr has lavished most of her attention on the woman’s face and hands. Notice her delicate depiction of the face, featuring highlights on her forehead, nose and mouth. The model’s hands are also closely observed, as are the sock itself and the knitting needles. The other parts of the composition are much more broadly painted. While the knitter’s costume is quickly painted, we are aware of her voluminous dress, lace collar and headpiece. Evident too are details of the fall of light across the woman’s body and face. The window ledge and railing are also painted in some detail, but behind the model on her right, the details of her bed are summarily executed.

These variations in detail are critical to our reading of the image, because they concentrate our attention on the woman herself and her knitting. Carr, who would later devote considerable time to crafts—weaving and pottery—obviously valued the skills of her subject. The care with which Carr has painted this image also demonstrates how much Carr valued the woman’s willingness to allow herself to be painted.

Woman Knitting — Repose #3 has a poignant sense of immediacy that takes us right into the scene. Executed with both confidence and skill, this charming watercolour portrait also shows us the fresh artistic techniques Carr would soon use to document Indigenous subjects in her home province.

We thank Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator—Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1988 to 2018, for contributing the above essay. Thom contributed to the major exhibition catalogue From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia and is the author of Emily Carr Collected.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars