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 catalog 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 catalog will present an essay by the scholar Colin Browne, ancillary archival materials, as well as full color 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.