More than twenty years since its last major solo survey of Emily Carr, the Vancouver Art Gallery is finally giving the iconic Canadian artist the expansive exhibition she deserves. Opening February 6 and running through November 8, 'That Green Ideal: Emily Carr and the Idea of Nature' brings together more than 100 works in the gallery's largest Carr presentation in over two decades.
The exhibition draws primarily from the gallery's own holdings—the most comprehensive Emily Carr collection in the world—offering a fresh perspective on an artist so influential that her vision risks being taken for granted.
"Carr created a way of seeing the Pacific Northwest landscape that was so compelling that we often tend to take it for granted," shares senior curator Richard Hill. "This makes it all too easy to overlook how her paintings continue to actively shape our visual understanding of our region's natural environment. My ambition with this exhibition is to do the opposite of taking her approach for granted—to do everything possible to open the gap between Carr's experience of nature and her transformation of that experience into a painting."
Rather than offering a simple chronological retrospective, 'That Green Ideal' zeroes in on a single idea: Carr's understanding of nature itself. Drawing on her training, Romantic influences, and deeply personal journals, the exhibition traces the tension between Carr's desire for spiritual communion with the land and the artistic and cultural ideas she carried into the forest.
The title comes directly from Carr's own writing, a phrase she used to describe her ongoing effort to capture not only the physical presence of the landscape but also its inner life. This marks the first exhibition to treat Carr's idea of nature as its sole subject.
The exhibition also connects to the gallery's expanding focus on art and wellbeing through a collaboration with the B.C. Parks Foundation's PaRx program, which enables healthcare professionals to prescribe time in nature and cultural landscapes.
"In British Columbia, nature is not something distant—it is part of the rhythm of our everyday lives," adds Sirish Rao, interim co-CEO. "Through the Gallery's prescription initiative, guests will be invited to experience her vision as part of their own journey of healing and thriving."