Audain Art Museum Acquires Emily Carr Painting

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Emily Carr "Survival," 1940, oil on canvas, 28" x 23" (courtesy Audain Art Museum)

The Audain Art Museum in Whistler, B.C., has acquired Emily Carr's painting Survival. 

The 1940 oil painting has not been exhibited publicly for some 60 years.

Survival was one of four Emily Carr works included in Canada's debut at the Venice Biennale in 1952. The painting was then purchased by Bank of Canada governor James E. Coyne, before going into a private collection in Quebec.

Michael Audain, chairman of the Audain Foundation, and his wife Yoshiko Karasawa, purchased the painting in a recent private sale. It will be on display starting in April.

"I was drawn to this important painting because of the subject matter, the late period in her oeuvre, and its distinguished provenance," says Audain. 

Curtis Collins, the museum's director and chief curator, says Survival "brilliantly echoes Carr's longstanding effort to evoke human emotions through highly charged renderings of B.C.'s forests."

The museum has 33 Emily Carr paintings in its collection.