"Carr, O'Keeffe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own"
2001-06-29 until 2001-09-09
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Toronto, ON, CA

Few North American women artists have achieved the legendary stature of Emily Carr (1871-1945, Canadian), Frida Kahlo (1907-1954, Mexican) and Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986, American). In their native countries, each has a secure artistic reputation as an outstanding woman painter of the century. Collectively, their work gives form to a mythos of North America, linking region and nationality to larger forces at work in Western consciousness.

Places of Their Own, was inspired by Dr Sharyn Udall's book of the same name. Dr Udall, of New Mexico is our guest curator and brings to the exhibition not only her extensive knowledge of Carr, Kahlo and O'Keeffe's art, but also additional insight into the life and characteristics of these women, gleaned during research for her book.

The exhibition comprises more than 60 paintings which are revelatory. There is much we can never know about the inner workings of an artist's mind, but there is much we can learn-much that emerges in the process of comparing creative lives and achievements.

The exhibition will invite comparison without imposing it. In their searches for identity, for example, Carr, Kahlo and O'Keeffe shared a number of important concerns. How was each artist's self consciousness reflectedNULL How did these women relate to an art world in which the masculine is privilegedNULL And how did they respond to the feminine in themselvesNULL

Carr, O'Keeffe and Kahlo each rooted herself in a part of the Americas, and reinvented the image of that place in her paintings. This exhibition probes the unique, sometimes conflicted identities developed within lives imprinted with courage, passion and integrity.

IMAGE:
Emily Carr 1871 - 1945
Shoreline 1936
oil on canvas
Gift of Mrs. H. P. de Pencier
McMichael Canadian Art Collection

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Canada

Other Important Exhibitions in Toronto