News Roundup: Millions in Art Sales Hammered Down at Canada’s Fall Auctions

The recently rebranded Cowley Abbott (formerly Consignor Canadian Fine Art) held its fall auction November 19 at the Gardiner Museum, with works by Jean Paul Lemieux, Jean McEwen and Molly Lamb Bobak leading the way. Lemieux’s Basse Messe, dimanche (1983) went for $330,400, within estimate, in a consignment from a Western Canadian corporation. McEwen’s Rose traversant les jaunes (1978) went for $88,500, tripling its high estimate with bidding on the phones. And a new auction record was set for Molly Lamb Bobak with Highland Games, Fredericton (n.d.) which realized $100,300, doubling its high estimate. (cowleyabbott.ca)

Works by Jean Paul Lemieux and Jean McEwen, along with a Marcelle Ferron, also led sales at the ByDealers Auction in Montreal, with a total of $3.2 million hammered down—the best result yet for this fairly new art-dealer consortium. Lemieux’s large oil on canvas Les deux cavaliers (1972) sold for $1.68 million, ranking it the third most expensive piece by the Canadian artist to sell at auction, while Marcelle Ferron’s untitled 1956 canvas was the subject of heated bidding, going for three times its high estimate, at $240,000. A new Canadian record was achieved for McEwen, with his square painting Adagio des pays vastes (1973) selling for $156,000. (bydealers.com)

An Emily Carr painting up for sale at Sotheby’s in New York didn’t find a buyer at a morning American Art sale on November 19—but the auction house says it sold to a private collector afterward. The 1912 painting titled Skedans, estimated at $3 to $5 million US, had been touted in press releases as “the first time that Sotheby’s has ever auctioned a work by Carr outside of Canada—in fact, according to the Artnet Price Database, this is only the second time that any auction house has offered a work by Carr in the United States.” This work was consigned by a private collection that the Department of Canadian Heritage confirms was based in Canada. Skedans had been previously exhibited at the Kelowna Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada. (Sotheby’s)

In other market news, there’s a new art fair gaining momentum in Canada this week. The International Ceramic Art Fair, which will be launched as a larger project in 2021, is unfolding in a small-scale iteration November 22 to 24 at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto. This year, the fair focuses on women-identified artists and promises to showcase new work by Shary Boyle (including collaborations with Rajni Perera, Lido Pimienta and Jillian Tamaki), Janet Macpherson, Julie Moon and Lindsay Montgomery, as well as works from Joan B Mirviss LTD in New York and Jeffrey Spahn Gallery in Berkeley. (Gardiner Museum)

Also on the art market front: three Canadian art dealers will be featured at Art Basel Miami in a few weeks’ time. Watch for Vancouver’s Catriona Jeffries, bringing work by Abbas Akhavan, Rochelle Goldberg, Brian Jungen, Janice Kerbel, Duane Linklater, Christina Mackie, Liz Magor, Elizabeth McIntosh and Ron Terada. Also present is Toronto’s Cooper Cole, which is mounting a solo booth of work by Tau Lewis. And perennial exhibitor Landau Fine Art of Montreal will bring its roster of blue-chip work, including art by Karel Appel, Hans Hoffmann, Henry Moore, Yves Tanguy and others. The fair runs December 5 to 8 in Miami Beach. (press releases)

This post was corrected on November 25, 2019. The Cowley Abbott auction happened at the Gardiner Museum, not the Royal Ontario Museum. We regret the error.