This monumental painting depicts the uninhabited Haida village of T’anuu. Of all the Carr works in our holdings, this is the most frequently consulted, requested for loan and exhibited.

Emily Carr (1871-1945) is a renowned Canadian artist and writer. Though she lived and died in Victoria, British Columbia, Carr studied in England and France and travelled extensively throughout coastal BC and Alaska, inspired by First Nations people and their art. Her later works take inspiration from the coastal forests, sea and skyscapes.

On the strength of her ambitious 1912 trip to the ‘Ksan/Xsi’yeen (Skeena River), Haida Gwaii (then officially the Queen Charlotte Islands, or Q.C.I.) and ‘Yalis (Alert Bay), Carr created a prodigious number of paintings and sketches depicting poles, houses and villages. This work was purchased by the Province in 1945 from the artist’s estate, along with six other Carr paintings.

Described by Doris Shadbolt as one of two large canvases of 1912-1913 “which indicate a heightened ambition and confidence”, Tanoo, at “almost five feet in length [is] almost acid in its high-keyed colouring…”