Emily Carr was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1871. Her parents died while she was a young teenager. She began art lessons when she was sixteen. When she was nineteen, she went to study art in San Francisco. She also studied art in England but she got sick and came back to Victoria. After she got better, she went to France to continue her art studies. She saw paintings by many French artists who were experimenting with new ways of painting. She was most influenced by French impressionism and post-impressionism, though.