Emily Carr - Association With The Group of Seven

Association With The Group of Seven

In 1927 Carr herself traveled east, timing her journey so that she would be able to meet members of the Group of Seven, at that time Canada's most recognized modern painters. Lawren Harris of the Group became a particularly important support: "You are one of us," he told Carr, welcoming her into the ranks of Canada's leading modernists despite her own self-deprecating attitude. The encounter changed the direction of Carr's artistic life, reinvigorating her sense of purpose and ending her artistic isolation of the previous 15 years. After the visit, Carr began a prolific period creating some of her works most recognizable today. Through her extensive correspondence with Harris, Carr also became aware of and studied northern European symbolism.

The Group influenced Carr's direction, and Lawren Harris in particular, not only by his work, but also by his belief in Theosophy, which Carr struggled to reconcile with her own conception of God. Carr’s “distrust for institutional religion” pervades much of her art. She became influenced by Theosophic thought, like many artists of the time, and began to form new vision of God as nature. She led a spiritual way of life, rejecting the Church and the religious institution, and painted raw landscapes found in the Canadian wilderness, mystically animated by a greater spirit.