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By John Mackie, Vancouver Sun
November 27, 2009
The $3.5 million top bid made Thursday for
The Old Stump, Lake Superior was the highest price ever paid
for a Lawren Harris painting or for any artwork by a member
of the famed Group of Seven.
Photograph by: Handout, Courtesy of Heffel Fine Art Auction House
Lawren Harris's "sketch" painting The Old Stump, Lake Superior sold for $3.51 million Thursday at the Heffel auction in Toronto, making it the second most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Canada.
The auction overall realized $20,773,642.50, the second highest-grossing Canadian art auction in history.
The Old Stump is a sketch, or small study, done for a landmark Harris painting in the National Gallery of Canada, North Shore, Lake Superior. The image of a lone tree stump set against the lake, sun beaming down, is one of the icons of Canadian art.
It was part of a quartet of Harris works put up for sale by the estate of Helen Band, who inherited them from her father, Charles Band. All four sold for over a million dollars - three of them to one collector.
The 15 lots in the Band collection sold for a combined $10,538,775, half the money garnered in the auction. (All prices include the live "hammer" price and a 17-per-cent "buyer's premium" that is added on top.)
"The Band pieces did really well, but they were game changers, because they were such important works," said Robert Heffel, noting the atmosphere at the auction was "electric."
The Old Stump set a new sales record for works by Lawren Harris, and also set a record for works by a member of the Group of Seven.
Harris wasn't the only artist to set a record.
Tom Thomson's small sketch Early Spring, Canoe Lake sold for $2,749,500, and 24 more records were set in the auction, which was dedicated to post-war and contemporary art.
The other million-dollar Harris paintings in the Band collection included Houses, St. Patrick Street (which sold $2.808 million), Iceberg, Baffin Bay North ($1.521 million) and In Buchanan Bay, Ellesmere Island ($1,111,500).
Another Band painting, Frederick Varley's Nude on a Couch, sold for $585,000, while an A.Y. Jackson oil owned by the Band family, North Shore Lake Superior, sold for $526,500.
Heffel wasn't surprised at the high prices, even in the midst of economic uncertainty.
"The quality of the pieces was of such high calibre that we knew the paintings would do really well. In the end the collectors got the prize."
A Toronto philanthropist sold the Thomson painting and will donate the money to charity.
The anonymous seller also sold several David Milnes for charity, including Bronx Park, 1913, which went for $280,800.
The top price garnered in the contemporary auction was for a colourful Paul-Emile Borduas abstract, Arabesque. Painted in 1955, it had a hammer price of $270,000. With the 17-per-cent buyer's premium, the final sale price was $315,900.
A darker Borduas painting from 1949, Allegro furios, sold for $140,400. (All prices from here on include buyer's premium.)
A pair of E.J. Hughes paintings, The Store at Allison Harbour B. C. (1955) and Davis Lagoon Bridge, Saltair, B.C. (1966) sold for $245,700 each. But another Hughes work, Roberts Bay, BC (1953) failed to sell after it didn't meet its minimum. It had been estimated at $100,000 to $150,000.
Robert Heffel runs the auction house with his brother David out of a gallery at Granville and Seventh. They have a spring sale in Vancouver, and a fall one in Toronto. The Heffels also hold the record auction sale of $23 million, which was set in May 2007.
jmackie@vancouversun.com
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