A recap of Heffel’s Fall 2016 Live Auction: The making of Canadian art history

This personal recap of the spectacularly dizzying night at Heffel’s Fall 2016 live auction, held on Nov. 23, 2016, marks the inauguration of my art blog. 

Walking into the Design Exchange, up the original staircase, to what used to be the trading floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange, adorned with stunning Charles Comfort murals, I could already feel the intense energy building up in the air. I roamed the hall, amidst the smartly dressed bidders and onlookers, who were mingling and engaging in lively conversations, catching up or perhaps even discussing the results of Waddington’s Canadian Fine Art auction, that took place two days prior. This was a busy night for Heffel, starting with Post-War & Contemporary Art and Gustave Caillebotte: Iris bleus, jardin du Petit Gennevilliers at 4:30 PM, and followed by Fine Canadian Art, and The Peter & Joanne Brown Collection at 7:30 PM. Needless to say, the most memorable highlight of the evening was the record-breaking sale of Lawren Harris’ Mountain Forms.

 With my ears still ringing from all the excitement, I am trying to grasp the monumental significance of this sale.  While the Canadian art world anticipated this to be a historical sale, the $9.5 million hammer price ($11.2 million with buyer’s premium) still took many participants and on-lookers by surprise. This includes Andrew Hunter, Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the AGO, who co-curated the recent Harris exhibit, The Idea of North, with the actor Steve Martin and Hammer’s Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, Cynthia Burlingham. In my brief chat with Hunter, as we were leaving the auction, he revealed that he had estimated the final bid to top off at $9 million, which was one increment below the hammer price. While Hunter’s estimate was not that far off, neither was Martin’s, who recently made the jaw-dropping suggestion that the painting could sell for $10 million.

To those who follow the International art market and are familiar with the stupendous sums being spent at auctions by collectors from the UAE or China, this sale may seem like child’s play, but for the Canadian art market this truly was history in the making.  This sale marks the world record price paid for a work by a Canadian artist at an auction. To put things into perspective, let’s consider these couple of facts. The long standing predecessor was the sale of Paul Kane's Scene in the Northwest to the renowned art lover Ken Thompson for a total of $5 million (buyer’s premium included) back in 2002.  Harris’ own record, prior to this, was $4.6 million (buyer’s premium included) for Mountain and Glacier. Now this begs the question of whether such a drastic jump in value of Harris’ work is sustainable, and I think many experts would agree that it is. While Steve Martin’s “endorsement” has helped elevate the awareness of Harris’ work in the United States, I wouldn’t deny the international appeal of his approach to representational painting. I do believe that the success of The Idea of North, as well as the sentimental and heartfelt depiction of Harris’s life in the masterful 2016 documentary Where The Universe Sings, has revitalized the Canadian pride enough for scholars and museum directors to champion his introduction to the global audience.  Undoubtedly, we will all be watching with eager anticipation to see what comes next for Lawren Harris.

With all the fanfare and media coverage, it’s easy to overlook many other records set at Heffel’s that night.  There were four records broken in the Post-War and Contemporary segment alone.

Note, all figures include buyer’s premium

• Gordon Smith’s intense White and Blue Out of Red at $177K
• Blackwood’s overwhelmingly bold “The Flora S. Nickerson” (with Barked Sails) Outward Bound for the Labrador at $177K
• Michael Snow’s iconic Walking Woman images in Airway at $153.4K
• William Kurelek’s deeply revealing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at $531K

There were also four other records (perhaps more, there were 20 lots remaining when I left) in addition to Harris’ set at the last two segments of the auction.

• A.Y. Jackson’s crisp sketch A Frozen Lake at $188.8K (record for a sketch)
• Bill Reid’s mythical bronze Killer Whale at $1.18 million
• A. J. Casson’s unusually bustling Country Crisis at $1.53 million
• Joe Fafard’s intense and vibrant painted bronze The Painter (van Gogh) at $94.4K

 While I was already hopelessly hooked on fine art, especially works I could only dream of owning, I have now also become addicted to live auctions.  After all, who could resist being surrounded by millions of dollars’ worth of art and relentless collectors on the mission to outbid their competition for those can’t-live-without pieces?

I am an avid traveler, art appreciator and lover of all things beautiful.  I could never get tired of talking about my passions, so please feel free to leave a comment.