Canada’s Heffel is gearing up for it’s November 27th sale of Canadian art just as one of Canada’s most valuable artists, Emily Carr, gets a UK exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Last year, Heffel sold Carr’s The Crazy Stair for a record C$3.4m. This year, the auction house has five works by Carr led by Totem Poles, Kitwancool Village (400-600k CAD), above.
Other highlights of the Heffel sale include (all quotes from Heffel’s press release):
“Jean Paul Riopelle is an undeniable favourite each season, with five works represented at the fall auction for a total combined estimate of between $1.3M to $1.9M. His 1955 masterpiece Ombrages was first sold at the Pierre Matisse Galle Aventure Picaresque comes from the private collection of Riopelle’s late Montreal dealer Gilles Corbeil, and Sanstitre is a fine example of his working method using the palette knife.”
“Undeniably one of Canada’s greatest artists, Emily Carr has five significant works estimated to fetch between $750,000 and $1.14M combined. Most notably, Totem Poles, Kitwancool Village expresses the affinity Carr felt with the First Nations people. Her 1928 pivotal journey to the remote village of Kitwancool inspired several of her better known pieces and marked her last extended visit to First Nations villages.”
“A significant piece by Jeff Wall, internationally acclaimed Canadian photo conceptualist whose photographs have transformed contemporary art. Wall’s Park Driveis a documentary photograph that reveals a familiar place – Stanley Park – a landscape shaped by humanity on the fringe of urban Vancouver, and tells a story of the passage of time. (est. $250,000 – $350,000).”
“At auction for a combined total estimate of between $562,000 and $766,000, are Paul- Émile Borduas’s oil on canvas pieces Sans titre and Gris-gris, along with the beautiful watercolour Aquarelle no. 6,which was painted on the back of the title page of William Saroyan’s book Harlem as Seen by Hirschfeld, published in New York in 1941 in a limited edition.”
Coinciding with a major retrospective exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Canada this month, three impressive paintings by Painters Eleven member Jack Hamilton Bush will go on the block for the competition of collectors. Leading the way is the cover lot Dull Day (est. $125,000 – $175,000), from Bush’s period following his exhibition at the 1967 Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil, which garnered him significant recognition in the New York market. Bush’s compelling Cry Cry and his deeply personal Frightened Child round out the sale. The Jack Bush retrospective exhibition is set to open at the National Gallery of Canada on November 13, 2014, before travelling back to the Art Gallery of Ontario.”
“Group of Seven’s Lawren Harris has three masterworks at auction with a combined total estimate of between $600,000 and $770,000. The impressive Houses on Gerrard Street eloquently showcases his talent for painting directly from a subject and relates to his other well-known urban house paintings, such as Toronto Houses from 1919, in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Mountain Sketch, Jasper, Athabasca Valley, painted on Harris’s journey to “the big country” with fellow Group of Seven member A. Y. Jackson, is a prime example of the dramatic evolution his work took while travelling in the Rockies. Heffel maintains a record-breaking sale for Harris’s The Old Stump, Lake Superior at $3.5M from the fall auction of 2009, making it the second highest amount ever paid at an art auction in Canada and the most ever paid for a Group of Seven painting sold at auction to date.”
“Rarely available, two major Clarence Gagnon canvases are on offer including the impressive The Trapper’s Return (est. $500,000 – $700,000), which has come back to Canada after residing in a U.S. collection for many years and is a testament to Gagnon’s talent for painting winter scenes. Making its auction debut is Gagnon’s Paysage de Charlevoix, given to the current owner’s parents as a wedding gift in 1948.”
“The classically Canadian Ste-Fidèle, PQ(est. $250,000 – $350,000) by Albert Henry Robinson, who took many sketching trips with Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson, embodies a feeling of warmth despite the winter scene. This piece is being offered for sale for the first time, having been in the possession of the Robinson family since its creation.”
From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia (Dulwich Picture Gallery)
