CANADIAN ART AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

172 Pages·2010·21.85 MB·English

CANADIAN ART AND CULTURAL APPROPRIATION:
EMILY CARR AND THE 1927 EXHIBITION OF
CANADIAN WEST COAST ART - NATIVE AND MODERN
by
ANN KATHERINE MORRISON
B.A., The University of Saskatchewan, 1950
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
in
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
(Department of Fine Arts)
We accept this thesis as conforming
to the required standard
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
April 1991
G> Ann Katherine Morrison, 1991
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced
degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it
freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive
copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my
department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or
publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written
permission.
Department
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada
DE-6 (2/88)
ii
ABSTRACT
In December 1927, Emily Carr's paintings were shown for the first time in
central Canada in an exhibition called Canadian West Coast Art - Native and
Modern. This event was held at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and
marked a major turning point in Carr's career, for it brought her acceptance by the
intellectual and artistic elite with their powerful networks of influence, as well as
national acclaim in the public press. To this point, art historical writings have
tended to focus on the artist and her own experiences, and in the process, the
importance of this experimental exhibition in which her work was included has been
overlooked and marginalized.
This thesis attempts to redress this imbalance by examining the exhibition in
detail: first, to analyze the complexities of its ideological premises and the cultural
implications of juxtaposing, for the first time in Canada, aboriginal and non-native
artistic production within an art gallery setting; second, to consider the roles played
by the two curators, Eric Brown, Director of the National Gallery, and C. Marius
Barbeau, chief ethnologist at the National Museum; and third, to indicate the ways
in which Emily Carr's works and those of the other non-native artists functioned
within the exhibition.
During the 1920s, both the National Gallery and the National Museum were
caught up in the competitive dynamic of asserting their leadership positions in the
cause of Canadian nationalism and the development of a national cultural identity.
In this 1927 exhibition, these issues of nationalism, self-definition and the
development of a distinctly "Canadian" art permeated its organization and
presentation. The appropriated aboriginal cultural material in the museum
collections that had languished within storage cases was to be given a
contemporary function. It was to be redeemed as "art," specifically as a "primitive"
stage in the teleological development of the constructed field of "Canadian" art
history. In this elision process, the curators relegated the native culture to a
prehistoric and early historic past, suppressing its own parallel historical and cultural
development.
The exhibition also presented the native objects as an available source of
decorative design motifs to be exploited by non-native artists, designers and
industrial firms in their production of Canadian products, underlining the assumption
of the right to control and manipulate the culture of the colonized "Other."
Emily Carr"s twenty-six paintings, four hooked rugs and decorated pottery
represented the largest contribution from any single artist. In their interpretations of
the native culture, Carr and the other non-native artists were also engaged in a
"self-other" definition, and had filtered their perceptions through the practices and
conventions of western art traditions, especially in the use of modernist techniques.
In the context of the exhibition, the artistic production by the fourteen non-native
t— •
artists, including Carr, was caught up in a reaffirmation of the ideological and
cultural positions of the two curators and the institutions they represented. The
alternate discourses that could have been provided by the native people remained
unheard.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page:
Abstract ii
List of Figures v
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Chapter One Nationalism, Appropriation and the Industrial Role 9
Chapter Two The Exhibition: Structures, Myths and Agendas 43
Chapter Three Carr"s Dilemma: Modernism or Mimesis? 74
Conclusion 93
Notes 97
Bibliography 116
Appendix Exhibition Catalogue of Canadian West Coast Art -
Native and Modern 128
Figures 139
V
LIST OF FIGURES
(Note about titles: the first is the title in the 1927 catalogue;
the second is the present title.)
Figures Page
1 Emily Carr Alert Bay (1912) - oil on canvas: 65.9 x 81.3 cm. 139
Beaverbrook Art Gallery;
(Indian Village. Alert Bay)
2 Emily Carr Alert Bay (1912) - oil on canvas; 87.3 x 36.5 cm. 140
Private Collection;
(Alert Bay -- Indian in yellow blanket)
3 Emily Carr Alert Bay, West Coast (1912) - oil on canvas; 141
81.8 x 60 cm.; Private collection;
(Street. Alert Bay)
4 Emily Carr Cape Mudqe. West Coast (1912) - oil on canvas; 142
71.8 x 58.7 cm.; Private collection;
(Indians with Totems - Cape Mudqe)
5 Emily Carr Gitsegvula Village. Skeena (1912) - oil on canvas; 143
127 x 98.9 cm.; Vancouver Art Gallery;
(Totem Poles. Kitseoukla)
6 Emily Carr Graveyard Entrance. Campbell River (1912) - oil on 144
canvas; 72.5 x 52.7 cm.; Private collection;
(Campbell River. B.C.)
7 Emily Carr Guvasdoms. West Coast. B.C. (1912) - oil on card; 145
65.8 x 96.4 cm.; Vancouver Art Gallery;
(Old Indian House, Northern British Columbia
8 Emily Carr Kispavaks Totem Poles (1912) - oil on canvas; 146
93.6 x 45.0 cm.; Private Collection;
(The Totem of the Bear and the Moon)
9 Emily Carr Mamalicoola, West Coast (1912) - oil on canvas; 147
130 x 89.5 cm.; National Gallery of Canada;
(Memalilaqua. Knight Inlet - Mimquimlees)
10 Emily Carr Skidegate Pole (1912) - oil on card; 148
65.4 x 32.5 cm.; Vancouver Art Gallery;
(Skidegate)
vi
11 Emily Carr Totem Pole. Skideqate. Queen Charlotte Islands 149
oil on card; 64.5 x 32.5 cm.; Vancouver Art Gallery;
(Skideqate - Beaver Pole)
12 Emily Carr Chief Gaum. Tsimsvan (1926) - red and black 150
chalk on paper; 57.8 x 45.7 cm.; National Gallery
of Canada; (Tsimshian Chief - Gaum)
13 Edwin Holgate Totem Poles. Gitseqyukla (1927) - oil on canvas; 151
81.3 x 81.3 cm.; National Gallery of Canada;
(Totem Poles - Gitseouklas)
14 A.Y. Jackson Kispavaks Village (1926) - oil on canvas; 152
54.0 x 66.8 cm.; McMichael Canadian Collection;
(Skeena Crossing)
15 W. Langdon Kihn Laelt (1924) - gouache and conte; 153
75.9 x 50.8 cm.; Vancouver Art Gallery;
(Solomon Harris)
16 W. Langdon Kihn Totem Poles. Gitwinlkul (1924) - oil on canvas; 154
124.8 x 93.6 cm.; National Gallery of Canada;
(Gitwinlkool Totem Poles)
17 W.J. Phillips Mamalilicoola (1927) - colour wood-cut; 155
30.5 x 35.3 cm.; National Gallery of Canada;
(Mamalilicoola. B.C.)
18 Anne Savage Temlaham. Upper Skeena River (1926) - oil on canvas; 156
50.1 x 62.4 cm.; Private collection;
(Hills on the Skeena )
19 to 26 Installation photographs of National Gallery 157 - 164
during the exhibition of Canadian West Coast
Art - Native and Modern . December 1927
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. John O'Brian and my second reader Dr.
Maureen Ryan of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia
for their encouragement, enthusiasm and patience, and for their careful guidance in
this project. I would also like to thank Doreen Walker who first supported my work
on Emily Carr, and my fellow graduate students for their interest and good humour
during many stimulating discussions.
There were a number of people who gave me assistance in gaining access to
research materials. I would especially like to thank Charles Hill, Curator of
Canadian Historical Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Michael Williams at the
National Gallery Library, Kathryn Bridges in the Provincial Archives and Dan Savard,
Curator of Archival Photography at the Royal British- Columbia Museum. Their help
is greatly appreciated.
1
INTRODUCTION
In his book Orientalism, Edward Said points out that "all cultures impose
connections on raw reality, changing it from free-floating objects into units of
knowledge."1 This process in fundamental to the codification of ideas and
information, but when the so-called "raw reality" includes other cultures, the
ramifications can be very profound. Said suggests that the tendency for a culture
to structure its fields of knowledge in its own terms can lead to the imposition of a
"transformation on other cultures, receiving them not as they are, but as, for the
benefit of the receiver, they ought to be."2 These "orientalist" practices, so clearly
described in Said's book, provide us with a useful paradigm by which we can
analyze the characteristics of power relations between imperial forces and their
colonial possessions. It can also give us insights into how the "Other" and its
material cultures gets reconstructed by the dominant culture and justified as
contributing to modern learning.3
These discourses on power relations and cultural reconstruction permeate the
legacy of colonialism that has so deeply affected Canada's political, social and
cultural history. They run like an undercurrent through the surge of nationalism that
emerged during the first two decades of this century, a nationalism that was
fostered by the Anglo-Canadian majority and fuelled by the traumatic experience of
the First World War, which had left so much revulsion and disillusionment in its
wake.4 As the possibility of a more independent status and the loosening of British
imperialist ties caught the Canadian imagination, a conscious and assertive effort
was made, especially during the 1920s, to define and construct a distinctively
2
"Canadian" cultural identity.5 Ironically, or perhaps not so ironically, at the same
time, Canadians seemed to be intent on hastening the cultural demise of the
aboriginal people within their national borders, legislating away all differences in the
name of hegemony, and forcing assimilation of the native people into the nationalist
vision of a homogeneous state, and relegating aboriginal culture to the limbo of an
undefined, non-specific past.6
Eager to provide the leadership for this growing nationalism was an intellectural
and cultural elite, few in number, but ambitious and articulate, and strategically
placed to promote the nationalist cause in political and cultural institutions, in
business and financial establishments and in the communications industries. 7 In this
study of an exhibition called Canadian West Coast Art - Native and Modern which
was held in 1927, two important and influential members of this elite group figure
prominently as key players. These individuals were the two curators of this
enterprise: Eric Brown, the Director of the National Gallery, and C. Marius Barbeau,
the chief ethnologist for the National Museum. Both were actively involved in the
definition and validation of a uniquely "Canadian" culture, as individuals and as
representatives of their respective institutions.
For the nationalists, the vast untapped resources of the northern wilderness
constituted a particularly potent metaphor for the unlimited opportunities open to
Canadians to shape their own future. The land itself, perceived as full of potential
for economic strength and wealth, was recognized and promoted as the one
unifying factor common to all Canadians that could cut across all regional, cultural
and language differences. As a result, when the Group of Seven and their
predecessor Tom Thomson produced powerful canvases of the boreal forests,
northern lakes and barren stretches of the Canadian Shield, their imagery was