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By John Mackie, Vancouver Sun
April 29, 2011 2:01 PM
David (left) and Robert Heffel with painting by
Canadian artist E.J. Hughes at their gallery.
Photograph by: NICK PROCAYLO, Vancouver Sun
E.J. Hughes got out of the army in 1946, bought a cottage at Shawnigan Lake near Victoria, and decided to try his hand at being a full-time artist.
He worked 12-hour days, but his meticulous style made for a small output: there are only a dozen Hughes paintings from the late 1940s. Money was so scarce, he didn't have a car until the late 1950s.
The late '40s Hughes paintings tend to be a bit darker and more turbulent than his playful later works - a little Van Gogh is mixed into the Rousseau. They rarely come to market, but when they do, can fetch big numbers: the 1946 painting Fishboats, Rivers Inlet sold for a record $920,000 in 2004.
That record may be shattered May 17, when the 1948 Hughes painting Coastal Boats Near Sidney, BC goes up for sale at the Heffel Auction of Canadian Post-War and Contemporary Art at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The striking depiction of two old steamships plying the coastal waters is arguably E.J. Hughes' finest painting.
"If you wanted one painting of Hughes, that's the one," says Jacques Barbeau, a prominent Hughes collector.
"If you want the aesthetic footprint of E.J. Hughes, I don't think you could have a better example. That is British Columbia. The strength, the power, the scenery, it's all in there."
The pre-auction estimate is $700,000 to $900,000, but if a couple of collectors square off over the painting, it could easily shoot past the $1 million mark. If it does, it would make E.J. Hughes only the 12th Canadian artist to have a work sell for a million dollars.
It may not be the only work that hits the sales stratosphere May 17. Heffel is also selling another exceptional Hughes painting, 1952's Mouth of the Courtenay River, which has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000.
Mouth of the Courtenay River is painted in a much more familiar Hughes style, a colourful scene of a fisherman steering a gillnetter down the river, with a farm, mountains and clouds in the background.
"It's the yin and the yang of E.J. Hughes," says Barbeau.
"One piece that is going to knock you out Coastal Boats, the other one is more subtle, it's more serene."
Both paintings are being sold by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, which bought them off Hughes in 1955 at the urging of an art-loving intern, Jack Parnell.
Dr. Jack Parnell would go on to become a prominent collector in his own right, and the president of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
"He was very supportive of the arts, right from the time he was interning," says artist Gordon Smith, who is the godfather of Parnell's children.
"He was a very good friend of mine, and he was a good friend of Lawren Harris. He bought a lot of very good paintings. The Ed Hughes ones he bought are tremendous. [One is] going for $1 million and I think he bought it for $300, or less."
Dr. Parnell was more than just a friend and collector of local artists: he was often their doctor.
"He was my doctor, and Harris's doctor," recounts Smith.
"Someone got a story where he was playing golf and Lawren had a heart attack and Jack fixed him. Well, Lawren never had a golf club in his hand, ever. So that's not true. But he did save Lawren's life, because he recommended he have [a heart operation for] a new aeorta."
Harris was so pleased with his operation he offered paintings to both Parnell and Dr. John Elliot, who had done the operation. The Parnell Harris is now in the Vancouver Art Gallery collection, but the painting Harris gave to Elliot, the 1957 abstract The Spirit of Remote Hills, is also for sale at the Heffel auction, with an estimate of $80,000 to $100,000.
There are 169 lots in the May 17 auction, which is divided into Canadian Post-War and Contemporary Art (starting at 4 p.m.) and Fine Canadian Art (at 7 p.m.). The pre-auction estimate is $8 million to $12 million.
For the first time, the Post-War sale (art post-1945) has a higher estimate than the Fine Canadian sale, where big ticket items by the Group of Seven are sold.
This time, the highest estimates belong to the two Hughes paintings, an untitled 1955 abstract by Jean-Paul Riopelle ($900,000 to $1.2 million), and Dimanche (1966) and Les Moniales (1964) by Jean-Paul Lemieux ($400,000 to $600,000 each).
"We're seeing a little bit of the demographics changing with the estates that are coming to us, where the estates now are a generation or a decade later," explains David Heffel.
"The collectors [who amassed their collections in the 1930s and 40s] are dissipating and are being replaced by the collectors who were highly active in the 50s and 60s."
The top items in the Fine Canadian Art sale are two Harris paintings estimated at $250,000 to $350,000, In The Ward (1920) and North Shore, Lake Superior, Pic Island II (1922). Emily Carr's The Gnarled Tree (1913-18) is estimated at $200,000 to $300,000, while David Milne's Woman and Bright Trees, West Saugerties, NY (1914) is estimated at $250,000 to $300,000.
There will be viewings of the auction lots in Montreal from April 28 to 30 and in Toronto from May 5 to 7. Vancouverites will be able to view the art May 13-17 at the Heffel Gallery, 2247 Granville. (Sotheby is also having a local viewing May 3 at the Contemporary Art Gallery for its Toronto auction May 26.)
The Riopelle abstract may wind up fetching the highest price at the Heffel auction - the late Quebec painter has had 10 paintings that have sold for over $1 million, third behind Lawren Harris (who has 18) and Tom Thomson (who has 10.)
If Hughes cracks the million dollar mark, though, it will have special significance for the Heffel brothers.
"You know, Emily Carr and E.J. Hughes are really the foundation of our business," said David Heffel, who took over the auction with his brother Robert after their father passed away.
"My dad was very fortunate to own the [Hughes painting] Indian Church, which is a masterpiece as well. He had it hanging here for many years, and a collector from Vancouver came in and said he wanted to buy it.
"My dad said 'It's not for sale,' and the collector said 'Well, what are you, an art dealer or a collector?' He got really angry with my dad and stormed out. Eventually he won, and my dad sold him the painting."
Edward John Hughes was born in North Vancouver in 1913 and grew up in Nanaimo. He attended the Vancouver School of Art, and post-graduation formed a mural group with fellow artists Orville Fisher and Paul Goranson. But he wasn't really able to pursue painting until he became one of Canada's war artists during the Second World War.
Hughes was surprisingly prolific as a war artist - the Canadian War Museum has over 500 Hughes works in its collection (118 paintings, 414 drawings). He was able to take some paint and canvas with him when he left the army - Heffel thinks Coastal Boats may have been done on an army canvas.
His big break came in 1951, when he met Montreal art dealer Max Stern. Stern represented Hughes for 35 years, and gave him the financial support to keep painting.
"I think for him the greatest reward was that he was able to continue painting," says Heffel.
"A lot of painters from his generation [couldn't]. Paul Goranson had to move to New York and painted backdrops for the Metropolitan Opera, Orville Fisher I think was an art teacher up the valley. They had to compromise, they weren't able to paint full time in the studio.
"Whereas Hughes was very fortunate to be discovered by Max Stern. If Stern didn't come along, Hughes would have moved into something else, perhaps rejoining the military."
Hughes rarely left Vancouver Island, and didn't attend the restrospective the Vancouver Art Gallery had of his work in 1994. (Coastal Boats Near Sidney, BC is on the cover of the Hughes bio by VAG curator Ian Thom that accompanied the exhibition.)
If you did meet Hughes, however, he was very affable. Which is partly why he didn't like to socialize.
"He'd open up and sit and talk with you for four hours, but he'd get back home and couldn't draw for two days," says Barbeau, who has written a couple of books about Hughes.
"He was worked up. That's why he wasn't too good on the social scene. [But he was a] very nice guy, totally dedicated to painting."
How dedicated? "He had his lawn in Duncan paved over so he didn't have to cut the lawn and cut into his painting hours," laughs Heffel.
Hughes died in Duncan in 2007 at the age of 93. After many years of financial struggle, he was finally able to enjoy financial stability in later life, even some luxuries.
"He loved his Jaguar," says Barbeau.
"He had two of them, I think. When he started to make money, that's what he bought. But that was all that he ever spent money on."
jmackie@vancouversun.com
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