Emily Carr: The Incredible Life and Adventures of a West Coast Artist

Naomi Brun is a freelance writer and a book reviewer for The Hamilton
Spectator.

This biography of Emily Carr presents the life story of a woman whose
talents and personality were in conflict with the aesthetic of her time.
Carr, best described as bold and eccentric, lived in an era of delicate
sensibilities. Her contemporaries sent thank-you cards, purchased
watercolour paintings of local gardens, and read lighthearted poetry.
Carr, on the other hand, favoured plain speech, created haunting
pictures inspired by her West Coast surroundings, and wrote lively
stories. As a result, this brilliant artist found herself isolated from
her peers until the end of her life, when societal tastes matched
Carr’s more closely.

In 111 pages, Klerks provides a concise, yet thorough, portrait of
Carr. Using straightforward language and simple grammatical structures,
Klerks tells of Carr’s dealings with friends and family, her
illnesses, her professional struggles, and her triumphs. The archetype
of the lonely artist has been around for centuries, but in this volume
Cat Klerks skilfully makes it seem new. Klerks’s biography interweaves
the development of Carr’s character with the maturation of her
creative process, thus allowing the reader to see how the one influenced
the other. The result is an intimate portrait of an artistic pioneer.