HeffelAuction

Global News Regina ~ Joe Fafard

heffel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:41:19 +0000

Click to Watch Joe Farard on Global News

London exhibit of Canadian art closes on a high note

heffel — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:47:58 +0000

Cellphone shot of part of the long lineup to see Group of Seven show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London on Jan. 8, 2012.

James Adams ~ Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 09, 2012 5:22PM EST

An exhibition of 123 paintings and oil sketches by Canada’s Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven has proved a sensational success at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, drawing more than 41,000 visitors over a 12-week run that concluded late Sunday afternoon.

According to Dulwich officials, that translates into an average of 553 visitors a day – making the show, called Painting Canada, the second most successful in the history of the Dulwich, inaugurated in 1817 as England’s first purpose-built public gallery…(more)

The next stop for the exhibition is the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo (Jan. 29 to May 13).

Shore, Forest and Beyond ~ Art from the Audain Collection

heffel — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 22:38:12 +0000

This exhibition is running October 29, 2011 to January 29, 2012 at the
Vancouver Art Gallery

Heffel at the Shore, Forest and Beyond Opening

The role of private collectors in the art world has always been essential to both artists and museums. Private collections are formed in a variety of ways, yet some achieve particular distinction for their depth, breadth and quality. The works assembled by Michael Audain and Yoshiko Karasawa over the last two decades form one of the most important private holdings of work by First Nations and non-First Nations British Columbia artists. The Audains have created a collection that allows a particularly rich history of the art of British Columbia to be told.

Beginning with the powerful ceremonial objects of the First Nations peoples, Shore, Forest and Beyond: Art from the Audain Collection traces the important strands of artistic production in the province right up to the present day. The co-curators have selected some 170 works from the Audain’s personal collection, as well as past works they have donated for the Gallery’s permanent collection. It features their particularly strong collection of the work of British Columbia’s most distinguished painter, Emily Carr, while presenting work by other prominent Canadian Modernists, including Lawren Harris, Frederick Horsman Varley and B.C. Binning. Their holdings of historical west coast indigenous art are complemented by a significant group of contemporary First Nations works, a number of which have been newly commissioned by the Audains. The photo-based art of the region has also received their careful attention, and they have been generous donors of works by Jeff Wall and Scott McFarland to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Finally, the exhibition includes another major area of focus—Mexican Modernism—representing the most significant collection of this art in Canada, with works by Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siquieros and Rufino Tamayo. The works presented—the first extensive survey of the collection—provide an overview of its richness and strengths.

Michael Audain has said that “living with art has been one of the great joys of my life.” These works attest to the wide range of his interests and deep commitment to the province and its history. Although was not formed with the intent of showing it to others, the strengths of their collection make it one of the most distinctive in the country.

Organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery and curated by Ian Thom, senior curator-historical, and Grant Arnold, Audain Curator of British Columbia Art.

Jean Paul Lemieux painting sells for record $2M

heffel — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:26:53 +0000

CBC News Posted: Nov 24, 2011 5:11 PM ET

Link to article and video clip

Jean Paul Lemieux’s canvas Nineteen Ten Remembered sold at auction Thursday for $2 million — $2.34 million with buyer’s premium — setting a new record for a contemporary work of Canadian art.

The much-reproduced work shows the Quebec artist as a child, standing between his parents in front of a cold, barren landscape.

It sold to a telephone bidder at Heffel Fine Art auction house in Toronto after spirited bidding. It was expected to be the most valuable offering at Heffel’s auction of Canadian post-war and contemporary art.

“Jean Paul Lemieux was just on fire…We shattered the previous world record for work at auction by a contemporary Canadian artist,” David Heffel said after the sale.

The previous record for a Canadian contemporary artwork sold in Canada was $1.6 million, set during the 2006 sale of Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Il était une fois une ville. An untitled Riopelle sold for $1.89 million in 2008 at Christie’s in New York.

Lemieux’s paintings of landscapes and figures are popular in Quebec and many people raised in Quebec recall growing up with a poster or print of Nineteen Ten Remembered on their wall, Robert Heffel said.

The artist, who died in 1990, was often at odds with his artistic contemporaries, who embraced abstract art and Automatism.

The painting has never been displayed in a public gallery. Lemieux gave Nineteen Ten Remembered to his daughters, who sold it to a member of the Archambault family, who sold it to a neighbour who consigned it to the auction.

Another notable sale was Emily Carr’s War Canoe, Alert Bay. The 1908 water-colour sold for $1.05 million — or $1.22 million with buyer’s premium — making it the most valuable Canadian water-colour.

The auction house said that Lawren Stewart Harris’s Rocky Mountain Sketch CXXI (Mount Robson) was another highlight, selling for well above asking.

“After an intense bidding war, the notable piece exceeded the estimate, selling for $1.81 million,” the auction house said in a statement released Thursday night. “This was one of two works for which the consignee generously agreed to donate the proceeds to Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital.”

Also on offer Thursday were paintings that once belonged to French hotelier François Dupré, an avid collector who took ownership of Montreal’s Ritz-Carleton in the late 1940s.

The whereabouts of his collection was unknown until his heirs recently came forward and revealed the works had been stored in a Montreal bank vault for the past 24 years.

Dupré bought works by Canadian impressionists such as Clarence Alphonse Gagnon, James Wilson Morrice and Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté for display at the hotel.

The auction house said the Dupré collection “surpassed estimates” and sold for $2.27 million.

Heffel said Thursday’s auction resulted in $16.73 million in sales. The company said three of the 190 lots sold for more than $1 million.

Toronto Preview fun at Heffel, November 20, 2011

heffel — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:54:48 +0000

Huge Batch of Canadian Paintings up for Auction

heffel — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:26:26 +0000

Robert Heffel ~ Huge batch of Canadian paintings up for auction

Bill Doskoch, CTVNews.ca (article)

Date: Saturday Nov. 19, 2011 7:29 AM ET

Collectors of Canadian art are expected to fork over nearly $12 million when a batch of masterpieces goes up for auction this coming week.

One of the paintings up for bidding is “Nineteen Ten Remembered,” by painter Jean Paul Lemieux.

Robert Heffel of Heffel Fine Art Auction told Canada AM recently that it is one of Canada’s most recognized contemporary works of art.

“Certainly everyone in Quebec knows this image,” he said.

The painting, created in 1962, shows the artist as a boy in a sailor suit, backdropped by a slate-grey, cloudy sky. He is flanked by his unsmiling parents who would soon separate.

While it has been sold privately before, it has never been available on the open market before this auction in Toronto on Nov. 24.

Another Lemieux painting sold for $1 million in May, which was a record for one of the artist’s works. Heffel said the auction house is confident that “Nineteen Ten Remembered” will sell for more.

“The Canadian record for a contemporary work of art is $1.6 million, and we feel this will challenge that record as well,” he said.

The record was set by a work from Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, one of Canada’s best-known contemporary painters. His 1952 work “Grande Fete” is expected to fetch between $900,000 and $1.2 million.

In London, a major show of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven’s work is rekindling interest in their work.

One of the pieces at auction is by group member Lawren Harris, whose “Rocky Mountain Sketch CXXI” is up for sale. The painting is of B.C.’s Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Heffel suggested the 1929 work will sell for between $300,000 and $500,000, but added that was a conservative estimate.

Proceeds from the sale of that work, along with B.C. painter Emily Carr’s “Glade,” will go to support Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital.

Franklin Carmichael was another member of the Group of Seven, which has come to define Canadian landscape painting. His “La Cloche Hills” is expected to sell for between $150,000 and $200,000.

While not a Group painter, Clarence Alphone Gagnon’s 1913 winter landscape classic, “Environs de Baie-Saint-Paul,” is expected to fetch between $200,000 and $300,000.

It had been hanging in the collection of Francois Dupre, owner of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal. Many pieces from Dupre’s collection were once displayed in the hotel.

But the “Environs” painting has been in storage for almost a quarter-century, “so it’s sort of like a lost masterpiece,” Heffel said.

Albert H. Robinson’s “Baie-Saint-Paul” had been hanging in a Massachusetts barn with another of his works, so it also falls into the lost masterpiece category.

“The family didn’t know that these were valuable paintings. They were going through the boxes in the barn and Googled ‘Albert H. Robinson’.” They then realized the works were valuable, he said.

Heffel said Canadians will be the biggest customers for the works, which have bee previou

“Predominantly our clients are Canadians from across the country,” Heffel said, adding that the works on sale have been previewed across Canada this fall.

However, Europeans, Asians and Americans are also in the hunt, he said.

Art lovers in Toronto this Saturday can view the 204 works up for sale at 13 Hazelton Ave. The public is welcome.

And if you only have $60,000 to $80,000 to spend, consider bidding on Alberta-born painter William Kurelek’s “Returning to Camp.”

Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven

heffel — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 21:55:48 +0000

Video ~ Reframing Tom Thomson, Murray White ~ Toronto Star

19 October 2011 – 8 January 2012 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK

This exhibition will also tour to the following locations:

National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway
29 January – 13 May 2012

The Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands
3 / 6 June – 28 October 2012

Heffel was in attendance for the opening events:

Nils Ohlsen (Director of Old Masters and Modern Art at the National Museum of
Norway) Alison Meredith, David Heffel, Merete Kristiansen, Patsy Heffel

“Above all elements Canadian, these are painters who knew how to handle paint and colour, and how to turn a small sketch executed on the spot into a high-pitched studio masterpiece.” – Brian Sewell, The Evening Standard

In the early twentieth century in Toronto, Canada, the first stirrings of a new movement of painting were being felt. A group of artists started to engage with the awesome Canadian wilderness, a landscape previously considered too wild and untamed to inspire ‘true’ art. Tom Thomson paved the way for this artistic collective, the Group of Seven, and their works have become revered in Canada. This exhibition will reintroduce their stunning impressions of the Canadian landscape to the British public for the first time since the 1920s

Organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, in collaboration with the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo and the Groninger Museum. With the generous support of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Camden Town in Canada ~ Antiques Trade Gazette

heffel — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:51:27 +0000

October 17, 2011 ~ Antiques Trade Gazette

Charles Ginner ~ Le Quai Duquesne, Dieppe

THIS rare-to-the-market 1913 Dieppe painting by Camden Town Group painter Charles Ginner (1878-1952) was recently rediscovered in an important Canadian collection.

It is now being offered for sale by Heffel’s of Vancouver, BC on October 27.

The whereabouts of Le Quai Duquesne, Dieppe, recorded in one of Ginner’s notebooks, had been unknown since the early 1920s when it was sold at Christie’s in London for £3 13s 6d.

The lively Post-Impressionist work was painted on Ginner’s 1913 visit to Dieppe. A small pochade/sketch for the painting is in the collection of The Graves Gallery Museum, Sheffield while a sister piece from the same date titled La Vieille Balayeuse, Dieppe is in the Tate Gallery.

The 2ft 1in x 17in (63 x 43cm) oil on canvas is being sold by a descendant of the famed Canadian self-made industrialist and art collector Ernest E. Poole. During World War I, Ginner served in the British Royal Army Ordinance Corps and the Intelligence Corps prior to moving to the Canadian War Records.

The estimate is $15,000-20,000.

The sketch for this work is in the collection of Museums Sheffield, Sheffield, England and can be viewed here.

This lot is included in Heffel’s October Online Sale of Fine International Art, that will begin to close, Thurday, October 27, 2011 at 1 pm Pacific time. The entire catalogue can be viewed here.

Upcoming Live Auction Highlights at Heffel

heffel — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:57:18 +0000

To be offered November 24, 2011 Fine Canadian Art

: Emily Carr: War Canoe, Alert Bay

Heffel is honoured to offer this magnificent watercolour War Canoe, Alert Bay in the fall live auction, from the famed collection of Ernest E. Poole. This is the watercolour for the important canvas Indian War Canoe (Alert Bay), in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

EMILY CARR
CGP OSA 1871 – 1945 Canadian
War Canoe, Alert Bay
watercolour on paper,
signed and dated 1908 and on verso titled on the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition label
10 5/8 x 15 in, 27 x 38.1 cm

Provenance:
Ernest E. Poole, Edmonton
By descent to the present Private Collection, Vancouver
Literature:
First Annual Exhibition, British Columbia Society of Artists, 1909, listed page 8 with a price of $30
Doris Shadbolt, Emily Carr, A Centennial Exhibition, Vancouver Art Gallery, 1975, reproduced page 66, and the 1912 oil entitled Indian War Canoe, Alert Bay, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, reproduced pages 27 and 71
Gerta Moray, Northwest Coast Native Culture and the Early Indian Paintings of Emily Carr, 1899 – 1913, 1993, reproduced, unpaginated, catalogue #E.1/12, and the 1912 oil entitled Indian War Canoe, Alert Bay, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, reproduced, unpaginated, catalogue #E.1/37
Charles C. Hill, Johanne Lamoureux et al, Emily Carr, New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon, National Gallery of Canada, the 1912 oil entitled Indian War Canoe, Alert Bay, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, reproduced page 142
Anne Newlands, Emily Carr: An Introduction to her Life and Art, 1996, the 1912 oil entitled Indian War Canoe, Alert Bay, in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, reproduced page 26
Growing Pains, Manuscript, Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives, unpaginated, undated
Exhibited:
British Columbia Society of Artists, First Annual Exhibition, Vancouver, April 20 – 28, 1909, catalogue #105
Vancouver Art Gallery, Emily Carr, A Centennial Exhibition, 1971, catalogue #9

Estimate: $200,000 – $300,000

To be offered November 24, 2011 Canadian Post War & Contemporary Art

: Jack Bush: Sing, Sing, Sing (BG 38)

“This irregular threshold again declares that the painting is made of pigment on a ground, a pragmatic assertion also characteristic of the prominent American abstractionists of critic Clement Greenberg’s post-painterly abstraction generation, of whom Bush was a prominent member. From the 1960s until his death in 1977, he exhibited with American artists such as Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler. He was in all ways their equal. As a composer in colour, he was unequalled.”
Mark Cheetham, Professor of Art History at the University of Toronto

JACK HAMILTON BUSH
1909 – 1977 Canadian
Sing, Sing, Sing (BG 38)
acrylic on canvas,
on verso signed, titled and dated 1974
68 x 114 3/4 in, 172.7 x 291.4 cm

Provenance:
David Mirvish Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

Estimate: $130,000 – $160,000

Joan Murray’s New Book: A Treasury of Tom Thomson

heffel — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:31:43 +0000

Tom Thomson’s most influential paintings as chosen by his friends and collectors, illustrating a moving, untold story in Canadian art.

In spring 1918, Lawren Harris and J.E.H. MacDonald, two members of the soon-to-be-formed Group of Seven, met in the Studio Building in Toronto. Their friend Tom Thomson had died the year before, and they determined to establish him as one of Canada’s great artists. Most of his paintings and sketches were stacked up in the studio. They would select the best, mark their comments on the back of these works and make sure they got into Canada’s most prestigious public and private collections.

These two great artists had been Thomson’s mentors and friends, teaching him about current art movements and coaching him in painting techniques. The pupil would become the master—and Harris and MacDonald, together with A.Y. Jackson, wanted to be sure that he would be recognized and remembered.

Art historian Joan Murray has constructed a beautiful, intimate treasury of Thomson’s “best paintings,” as chosen by these artist friends and later major collectors, and has written an insightful commentary on each one. Knowing the story that lies behind Thomson’s great works helps us to view these paintings with new insight and appreciation. We understand what makes these works special.