May is ‘Fine Art’ month in Canada, with the three largest Auction houses, Heffel, Sotheby’s and Joyner all hosting sales of works by Canada’s leading painters.
Sotheby’s, in association with Ritchies, is currently holding its preview through Sunday, May 27 from noon till 5:00 at 380 King Street East in Toronto. Its Auction will take place on Monday, May 28, commencing at 10:30 am.
The preview offers an incredible collection of William Kurelek pieces, including ‘McCarney Pastoral’, a delightful image of two schoolboys resting on a rural hillside in P.E.I. near the Hunt River. There are also a number of brilliant pieces by Marc-Aurele Fortin including ‘Hochelaga’, a heartbreakingly accurate backyard Toronto piece by John Kasyn titled ‘Behind Grange Ave. (Toronto)', and a hauntingly lyrical piece by Arthur Lismer called 'Northern Tapestry’ that will take your breath away.
A place of honour is reserved for 'Beauty, Mantled Deep’ by Frank (Franz) Johnston, most likely painted in the Lake Nipigon area. Of equal beauty and importance is 'Les Servantes’ by Jean-Paul Lemieux, its haunting figures stealing down the staircases and corridors of our collective National memory.
'Falls of Montmorenci’ by Cornelius Kreighoff depicts the area just east of Quebec City. The base of the falls is adorned with the joyous colours of a rainbow. One of our favourites, Stanley Morel Cosgrove, is well represented with his piece 'Spring Landscape’, his dream-like oils bleeding onto the canvas in a faux-watercolour manner.
In the abstract medium, we see two stunning pieces by Toronto painter Gershon Iskowitz, 'July #2’ and 'Red-B’, both in full Iskowitz tradition of infinite imagination and colour. More quietly, the always brilliant and sometimes tender Jean Albert McEwen is represented by 'Les Fiancailles No.8’. This subtle work captures the eye and holds it.
Also noteworthy is 'A Room At St. Vincent’s’ by Christopher Pratt, a strange and haunting image of invention presented in the style of photo-realism. This empty room, devoid of humanity but rife with human emotion, stands in stark contrast to the warmth and classic vigour of Henri Leopold Masson’s piece 'Night Skating’. A steady stream of skaters moves with more energy than grace through the darkness, teeming forward with the heat of life on the cold Quebec ice.
I cannot overlook one tiny gem: a spray of colour titled 'Sahara’ by Marcelle Ferron, full of shimmering heat. Nearby is William Perehudoff’s '1986’, which depicts fiery bolts of yellow and blue stabbing through a thick grey cloud. And in the same vein of warmth, we find 'Ruins of a Tropic Town’ by Jack Leonard Shadbolt, featuring a sun-baked palm tree in the centre of a vivid red-brick landscape.
Alex was in Vancouver last week speaking to a group of Construction professionals on behalf of Reed Construction Data. On Wednesday, May 23 he attended the Heffel Auction at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel on Burrard Street. The Grand Auctioneers Robert and David Heffel mesmerized bidders and onlookers alike with their knowledge and wit. Alex and I had earlier scouted the preview at the Heffel Gallery on Hazelton Avenue in Toronto.
We concluded that for Spring, 2007 no other House offered quite the calibre of eye candy that Heffel did. From the moment we walked into the funky, crooked little gallery, we were treated to an array of Masterpieces – Maurice Cullen, J.E.H. MacDonald, Robert Wakeham Pilot, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Cornelius Krieghoff, A.J. Casson, Tom Thomson, David Milne, William Goodridge Roberts, Arthur Lismer, Nora Collyer, Marc-Aurele Fortin, Jean Paul Lemieux, Emily Carr, Franklin Carmichael, Frank (Franz) Johnston, Wiliam Kurelek, Henri Leopold Masson, Jack Hamilton Bush, Jack Shadbolt, Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Frederick Horsman Varley, Marc-Aurele de Foy Suzor-Cote, John Kasyn, John Goodwin Lyman, Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Alexander Colville, E.J. Hughes, John Carruthers Little – the list just goes on and on and on…
One of the most pleasant surprises of the evening was the sale of John Goodwin Lyman’s 'Beach Scene – La Grande Plage’ for $207,000. This carefully constructed composition of human forms dressed in pink, white, blue and yellow and apparently randomly laid out on golden sand under a layered violet/blue sky represents Lyman’s organised approach to visual splendour. The excitement surrounding this piece may mark a subtle move on the part of buyers away from the Group of Seven and toward the diverse Montreal art scene of the mid 1900’s.
The grand sale of the night was Heffel’s showcase piece by Lawren Stewart Harris, 'Pine Tree and Red House, Winter, City Painting II’, which went for $2.9 million. A stunning Franklin Carmichael titled 'Autumn Woods’ went for $320,000, and Tom Thomson’s heavenly 'Summer Clouds’ captured $900,000., as well as the undying admiration of this viewer.
'Cabin Window, O’Hara Camp’ by J.E.H. MacDonald is striking in its simplicity. One can almost smell the cedar and the faint mould on the damp wool blanket. It brought in a respectable $65,000. Meanwhile, Paul-Emile Borduas’s abstract 'Bouc centenaire’ inspires a sense of tightly controlled whimsy right down to the mysterious title, which may be a veiled reference to his status as a scapegoat, having been fired from his teaching position after the launching of the Refus Global manifesto in 1948. The piece, which was painted in New York and stickered in Greenwich Village, sold for over $172,000.
The classic Alexander Colville work, 'Two Pacers’, representing the artist’s masterful understanding of form in motion, weighed in at $690,000. The dream-like quality of the un-harnessed horses and the unseated driver floating above the surreal lines of the track are vaguely disturbing, printing themselves on the psyche in a haunting manner.
My favourite by abstract Master Jean-Paul Riopelle, a 1955 work titled 'Sans titre’, drew over $172,000, its shattered glass imagery bursting with the full energy of spring.
Alex and I agree without hesitation that this season’s ‘warm heart’ award goes to William Goodridge Roberts, the passionate, colourful, urgent Master of the Big 3: still life, portraiture and landscapes. One has only to stand in front of a piece like ‘Still Life with Flowers and Fruit’ to feel the rush of power, warmth and sheer love of subject that flows from the artist through the brush onto the board, at last flooding the eyes and mind of the viewer with unabashed delight. This piece drew over $40,000. One can only hope that this undeniable talent from the Montreal school will at last come to gain the recognition he so richly deserves. Whether the subject is a woman, the driving energy of the landscapes of Georgian Bay, or the simplest and most common of household objects, Roberts’s passion is evident in its rich, unhesitant expression. Nothing is accidental – every stroke, no matter how urgent, is measured and planned, as if the artist can already see the finished product and needs only to touch the surface to bring his image to full splendour before our very eyes. Looking at one of these pieces is like being treated to a piece of Roberts’s soul.
Of course this is true of any artist, but with Roberts, we feel that kinship more acutely. There is something in his touch that speaks to us. And so for this, his gift of love and urgency and colour, we offer him our personal admiration.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to attend the Joyner preview which begins on Sunday, May 27 at Waddington’s Auction Galleries at 111 Bathurst Street in Toronto, but I do want to give it mention here. Joyner is offering a number of exceptional pieces, including 'Old Mill, Bay of Quinte’ by Manly Edward MacDonald, 'Lac Ouimet, 1941’ by John Goodwin Lyman, a couple of terrific pieces by William Goodridge Roberts, and two delightfully delicate works by Dorothy Knowles: 'Quiet Day’ and 'Autumn Bushes’. If you are able to attend this preview, it should be well worth the visit.
Our thanks to the three big Houses for their wonderful Springtime 2007 offerings. We thoroughly enjoyed the feast!
Donna Carrick, May 26, 2007
