Sold for: $140,400

PROVENANCE
Dominion Gallery, Montreal
The Collection of Dr. John A. MacAulay, Winnipeg
Private Collection, Vancouver
Sold sale of Fine Canadian Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 15, 2013, lot 167
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Doris Shadbolt, The Art of Emily Carr, 1979, a similar circa 1936 Untitled oil on paper work, in the collection of the Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, University of Victoria, reproduced page 214
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands, The Journals of Emily Carr, 2006, pages 265 and 273

Emily Carr’s depictions of inner forests ranged from solemn to tender and joyous, such as in this fluid, energized oil on paper work. In Forest Interior, painted in a free and expansive manner, Carr is attuned to the pulse of life. The foreground is lush forest undergrowth, which she described in her journal as “a sea of sallal [sic] and bracken, waving, surging, rolling towards you. Green jungle...solid, yet the very solidity full of air spaces.” With her technique of oil washes on paper, Carr could work directly in the forest. She captured what she perceived with sweeping brush-strokes, finding “themes everywhere, something sublime...or joyous, or calm, or mysterious. Tender youthfulness laughing at gnarled oldness. Moss and ferns, and leaves and twigs, light and air, depth and colour chattering, dancing a mad joy-dance, but only apparently tied up in stillness and silence. You must be still in order to hear and see.”

This beautiful painting was once owned by the prominent Winnipeg collector Dr. John MacAulay, whose collection included the extraordinary Carr canvas Wind in the Tree Tops, which Heffel sold for a record price in June of 2009.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars