TEXTO I

EMILY CARR (1871-1945)

Emily Carr was born on December 13, 1871, in Victoria, British Columbia, to Richard and Emily Saunders Carr, the fifth child in a family of five girls. A brother, Dick, was born in 1875. Carr began her training as an artist in her late teens. After the death of both parents, rather than be subjected to the demands of her overbearing sister Edith, Carr approached her legal guardian to secure funds to attend the California School of Design. Little of her work survives from this period, but she seems to have received basic instruction in oil painting and watercolour and was able, upon her return to Victoria in 1893, to make a living as an art teacher. In 1907, she began documenting the First Nations cultures of British Columbia.

Carr continued to draw and paint throughout the 1930s until a heart attack in 1937 left her bedridden and unable to paint. She began to devote all of her creative energy to writing. Ira Dilworth, teacher and CBC executive, became her confidant and literary advisor. Dilworth’s support of her autobiographical sketches gave her both the confidence and the means to secure publication for her work. Her writing, initially broadcast on CBC Radio, gathered popular appeal and endeared her to a public that for years had been hostile to her art (1).

Klee wyck, first published in 1941, was a huge popular success and a critical success as well: Carr was awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction in 1941. Some of her other titles were The book of small (1942), The house of all sorts (1944), Growing pains (1946) and The heart of a peacock (1953).

Growing pains tells the story of Carr’s life, beginning with her girlhood in pioneer Victoria and going on to her training as an artist in San Francisco, England and France. Also here is the frustration she felt at the rejection of her art by Canadians, of the years of despair when she stopped painting.

Carr is a natural storyteller whose writing is vivid and vital, informed by wit, nostalgic charm, an artist’s eye for description, a deep feeling for creatures and the idiosyncrasies of humanity.

Emily Carr died in Victoria on May 2, 1945, with no idea that she would ultimately become a Canadian icon.

Adaptado de museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca.

Em 1937, um acontecimento mudou radicalmente a vida profissional de Emily Carr.

Aponte esse acontecimento e explicite, em uma frase completa, por que ele interferiu em sua vida profissional.