A painting of the Don Valley Parkway’s rainbow tunnel could sell for more than $16 million
Anyone who has driven past the Don Valley Parkway’s rainbow tunnel over the past 40 some-odd years and not somehow cashed in on the experience will be feeling pretty dumb on June 30th, when Sotheby’s London auctions off a painting of that very tunnel for a sum that, according to the Globe, is considered likely to land well north of $16 million.
The painting, titled Country Rock (Wing Mirror), is a 1999 work by Peter Doig, a Scottish artist who lived in Canada at various points in his life, but who now makes his home in Trinidad. The piece is a fairly faithful oil-paint rendition of the view of the tunnel from the northbound lanes of the DVP. (The artist clearly took some license with the traffic, though.) Hilariously, the U.K. Telegraph’s article about the auction describes the painting’s backdrop—the Don Valley, just south of Lawrence Avenue East—as “pleasant countryside,” which, sure.
Doig’s work is a hot commodity at the moment, to the point that his paintings are considered some of the highest-valued by any living artist. Last month, a landscape of his called Road House sold for $11.9 million. And to think, gridlocked commuters get to bask in the pastoral beauty of the rainbow tunnel for nothing more than the price of gas.
