The Heffel House Spring Auction will take place on May 25 in Toronto. The works, many of which are museum-quality, are on display free of charge from this Thursday, and until next Wednesday, at Heffel’s Montreal office. Among these, paintings by Emily Carr, Alex Colville, Lawren Stewart Harris, E. J. Hughes, Jean Paul Riopelle and Jean Paul Lemieux.
Heffel predicts that the highlight of the sale could be the monumental June Noon by Alex Colville. Originally acquired by the Langen family of Germany, famous for their private museum, the painting has been in that collection for over 50 years and has been exhibited in several museums and at the Venice Biennale in 1966 while Colville represented Canada. Sold at auction for the first time, the nude (the artist’s wife, Rhoda) is estimated between $1,500,000 and $2,500,000.
By Emily Carr, Heffel will be selling her masterpiece Sitka Totem Pole painted in 1912 upon her return from France. The painting has been kept by the same family since its acquisition from Emily Carr’s dealer, the renowned Max Stern of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal, and has only been exhibited once in the past century, when the Emily Carr Retrospective: New Perspectives on a Canadian Legend organized by the National Gallery of Canada in 2006.
On the occasion of the centenary of Riopelle’s birth, the auction will sell four of his works, including a bronze sculpture, Hibou-carnaval. Three paintings by Jean Paul Lemieux will also be on sale, including the astonishing portrait Samuel, as well as the large Green-Red Serial System by Guido Molinari and the brilliant Paysage Grande-Vallée by Marc-Aurèle Fortin, a brightly colored painting depicting Gaspe. The House of Heffel forecasts global sales between 10 and 15 million.
