A original new look at the life and art of Emily Carr and her relationship to the international art of her time “I had an interesting French Artist to see me this summer”: Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia brings together new research concerning the French/Austrian artist Wolfgang Paalen (1905-1959), and the great Canadian modernist, Emily Carr (1871-1945), both of whom dedicated their most productive years to what Paalen called “the direct visualization of the forces which move our body and mind.” Accompanying an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery scheduled for July 1 to November 13, 2016, the catalogue will tell the story of how both artists met in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1939, and how the creative vision of each one expanded in reaction to the landscape and the monumental art of the Northwest Coast First Nations. The catalogue will present an essay by the scholar Colin Browne, ancillary archival materials, as well as full colour reproductions of both early and late works by both artists as they moved toward their transcendent visions.

With objects assembled from public and private collections internationally, this first pairing of these two modernist painters is being organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, and curated by Colin Browne.

Colin Browne’s most recent book of poetry, Here, was published by Talonbooks in September 2020. His extended essay, Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw (Talonbooks, 2016), is a poetic exploration of three argillite platters made by Haida artist Da.a xiigang (Charles Edenshaw) between 1885 and 1895. In 2018, Browne and composer Alfredo Santa Ana collaborated on the creation of Music for a Night in May, three new works for string quartet, soprano, and spoken voice, presented at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He was the guest curator in 2016 for the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition I had an interesting French Artist to see me this summer: Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia, a show that featured the largest number of Paalen’s paintings ever exhibited in Canada. He has recently written catalogue essays for exhibitions in New York and Vienna that reflect on the history and legacy of the Surrealist engagement with the ceremonial and monumental arts of the Northwest Coast. Browne is currently working on a book about Wolfgang Paalen’s 1939 journey from Alaska to Victoria, tentatively entitled Wolfgang Paalen’s Northwest Passage.

Colin Browne's profile page