The Bay’s art collection is being auctioned off
It won’t recoup the full $950 million owed to creditors, but it’s a start
Forget a liquidation sale. The real Hudson’s Bay Company loot is in the shuttered retailer’s upcoming art auction, set to take place in November.
A catalogue released yesterday by Heffel Fine Art Auction House, retained by the Hudson’s Bay to sell off its extensive reserve of art, shares 27 high-profile pieces, described in a press release as “a once-in-a-generation offering.” The auction will help creditors recoup the reported $950 million they’ve been owed since HBC filed for creditor protection and closed its stores earlier this year.
Related: Billionaire David Thomson wants to outbid Galen Weston for the Hudson’s Bay charter
The piece with the highest estimated value is a painting by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, called “Morocco,” priced between $400,000 and $600,000.
On the lower end, for an estimated $4,000, bidders can take home an Adam Sherriff Scott painting, or a Lorne Holland Bouchard.
The auction will also include two paintings by William von Moll Berczy, one of the founders of Toronto. Those are priced between $70,000 and $90,000.
A Canadian Press report notes that the auction does not include artwork of Indigenous origin, which will be donated.
If you haven’t already drained your savings to see the Blue Jays, the to-be-auctioned pieces will be displayed at Heffel Toronto, in Yorkville, from November 11-18, before the auction on November 19.
Related: Inside the last day of Hudson’s Bay’s Toronto flagship
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
