Upcoming Heffel auction to feature Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Paul-Émile Borduas and more

Upcoming Heffel auction to feature Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Paul-Émile Borduas and more

Emily Carr’s Trees in the Wind Circle (1938)

Heffel Fine Art Auction House is offering up a healthy dose of Canadiana with its latest—and potentially record-breaking—auction, with a preview scheduled from May 5 to May 7 at Heffel Gallery in Yorkville. In total, the 186-lot sale is expected to net between $8 and $12 million, placing the event within the top 10 highest grossing auctions of Canadian work of all time. So what’s all the hype about?

Well, the fact that the spring auction includes works from the Group of Seven’s A. Y. Jackson and Lawren Harris, West Coast artist Emily Carr, and Quebec’s Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jean Paul Lemieux and Paul-Émile Borduas doesn’t hurt. It also features works from the estate of Edgar and Dorothy Davidson, originally purchased for $30,000, and two early E. J. Hughes paintings from the collection of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. A live auction will broadcast online on May 17 and arrangements can be made with Heffel should art buyers be interested in bidding over the phone. More information about specific paintings for auction and their price tags after the jump.

The spring auction is divided into two sessions, titled Fine Canadian Art, and Canadian Post-War and Contemporary Art. It features five works by Riopelle, including the large-scale Sans titre (1955), which is estimated to be worth between $900,000 and $1.2 million. Also on auction from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Colombia are Hughes’s Coastal Boats Near Sidney, BC (1948), which is estimated at $700,000–$900,000, Mouth of the River (1952), at an estimated $500,000 to $700,000. Carr works on offer includes Trees in the Wind Circle (1938) and Gnarled Tree (1913–1918), which are expected to retail for an estimated $125,000–$175,000 and $200,000–$300,000, respectively. A few other highlights from the sale include works from the estate of Montreal collector Theodosia Dawes Bond Thornton, including Lawren Harris’s Mountains, Jasper, and works from the estate of Andrée Lavigne-Trudeau, including The Sound by Charles Gagnon and Jean-Paul Mousseau’s fibreglass and resin Suspended Lamp. It isn’t often that this much rare or traditionally unavailable Canadian art goes on display for purchase, so now might be a a good time to mortgage a summer property for patriotism.

Heffel, 13 Hazelton Lane, 416-961-6505, www.heffel.com

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