Emily Carr

Studying in San Francisco, London, and Paris, Carr returned to Victoria dedicated to documenting the monumental totem poles and villages of the Haida, Gitxsan, and Nuu-chah-nulth nations. Discouraged by local indifference, she operated a boarding house for fifteen years before being rediscovered.

Invited to Ottawa in 1927 for the National Gallery's landmark exhibition of West Coast art, she met Lawren Harris, who famously told her: 'You are one of us.' Re-energized, Carr painted soaring, swirling masterpieces of cedar forests and Pacific skies, while her memoir Klee Wyck won national literary acclaim.