About this work
With its wide panoramic format, *Skedans* conveys the power of this place and the wonder with which Carr greeted it.
A row of totem poles straggles along the low bank skirting Skedans Bay — bleached and hollow in their upper ends, with coffin-boxes boarded into the poles by heavy cedar planks boldly carved with the crests of chiefs of the Eagle, Bear, and Whale Clans.
The overall scene is unified by expressive brushwork, and the treatment of the thoughtfully articulated totem carvings is consistent with the landscape, reasserting their spiritual connection to one another.
The brilliantly coloured landscape and weathered totems are brought together by that same animated touch, their relationship rendered inseparable. The composition stretches horizontally like the shoreline itself — unhurried, sweeping, and quietly monumental.
In 1912, working feverishly in her new style, Carr mounted a six-week expedition to visit fifteen First Nations villages, including Skedans in Haida Gwaii, then known as the Queen Charlotte Islands.
A 1910 trip to Paris had energised her more radical stylistic inclinations; exposed to modern developments in painting and specifically to the Fauves, she had expanded her palette to include bold, saturated colours applied with loose, animated brushwork.
Appearing at auction for the first time in its history in 2019, *Skedans* is recognised as a masterpiece of the artist's early period — notable for its monumental scale and the modern sensibility she had acquired in France, applied to the subject that would fuel her throughout her career.
Carr herself submitted it to the landmark 1927 Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art in Ottawa, for which she constructed the painting's frame from found wood.
Her approach is distinctive for its empathy and immediacy — humble and reverential rather than ethnographic, deeply personally reflective.
*Skedans* belongs in a room that can hold stillness — a generous wall in a study, a reading room, or a hall where natural light falls obliquely. Its muted, sun-bleached tones of grey and ochre keep it from overpowering a space, while the sweep of the panoramic composition demands a long, unhurried look. It speaks to the viewer who is drawn to work made by an inquisitive outsider — someone sensitive to a culture on the brink of change, and to the weight of what is being witnessed. This is a painting for those who want art that earns its place on the wall: historically grounded, visually commanding, and emotionally true.
