The Canadian Art Gallery Hop has just announced the live-auction items for its Gala Dinner and Auction taking place September 20 at the Carlu in Toronto.
A major highlight is The Pioneers by internationally renowned Vancouver author and artist Douglas Coupland. Part of a series of paintings that also function as QR codes, the painting analyzes sensations created by information technology that are common to today’s Western mind. It is estimated at $26,000.
The live-auction lots also include Tim Gardner’s new watercolour Garibaldi, which is estimated at $20,000, and Julia Dault’s recent painting New Moon Drag, which is estimated at $10,000. Dault was recently featured in the New Museum Triennial in New York and Gardner has exhibited at the UK’s National Gallery.
Combining text, texture and colour in striking ways, Graham Gillmore’s painting Op Ed (First Version), estimated at $19,000, is also due to attract fevered bidding. The Vancouver artist’s work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Ghent Museum in Brussels, among other notable institutions.
Woman at Pond by acclaimed Vancouver artist Karin Bubaš, estimated at $8,500, and An Image Idea of a Tree by emerging Toronto artist Jamie Campbell round out the live-auction artworks.
Bubaš’s piece is part of a series entitled Studies in Landscape and Wardrobe, which uses the style of 1950s and 1960s cinema to explore character psychology as it is reflected by the cultivated natural environment. Campbell’s photograph, estimated at $1,600 in the auction’s new emerging-artists section, shows a tree bathed with otherworldly light and recalls 19th-century spirit photography.
Also being auctioned for the first time ever at the Gallery Hop Gala is an expert-led art trip to New York. The trip includes private plane transport to New York during the Frieze New York art fair in May 2013, along with a two-night stay at a five-star hotel. An insider’s tour of Frieze will provide an opportunity to learn about current trends, artists and galleries at one of the art world’s best fairs. A specialist will also take trip guests on a behind-the-scenes tour of Sotheby’s, one of the world’s oldest operating fine-art auction houses.
The Gallery Hop’s live auction will be conducted by Sotheby’s executive vice-president of senior business development Hugh Hildesley. Proceeds support the work of the Canadian Art Foundation, with auction artists also receiving a portion of the hammer price.
Absentee bidding is available for all live-auction lots as well as for 36 silent-auction lots. For more information, please visit canadianart.ca/galleryhop.
