Lot 78
M. EMILY CARR
Additional Images
Provenance:
Studio of the artist.
Carol Dennise Williams, Toronto.
Alma Porter (circa 1954-60).
By descent through the Porter family.
Private Collection, Montreal.
Literature:
Carol Dennise Pearson (nee Williams), Emily Carr as I Knew Her, Toronto, 1954.
Maria Tippett, Emily Carr, A Biography, Markham, Ontario, 1982, pages 136-137 and page 270 for a photograph of Emily and Carol.
Note:
Executed circa 1924.
This drawing is contained in a small autograph book which belonged to Carol Dennise Williams, 217 Government St., Victoria, B.C. and which also includes numerous other entries and drawings by her friends and family.
The Williams family had moved to Victoria from Toronto in the early 1920s and the young Carol became Emily’s closest friend and occasional painting partner. So close did they become that Emily asked Carol’s mother if she could adopt the young girl as her own. Mrs. Williams declined but did allow Carol to call Emily ‘Mom’. Emily responded by giving Carol the pet name ‘Baboo’. The intimate friendship lasted until Carol moved to Ontario in 1926 and her subsequent marriage to Bill Pearson.
Alma Porter and Carol Pearson were good friends and rode together in hunt clubs. Pearson was a great horse and animal trainer, a skill she had learned from Carr.