Vancouver – Once again the Heffel machine has laid down the gauntlet to its main rivals with an eye-popping sale of Canadian art this spring that has all the earmarks of yet another record-setting single session auction. The company’s sale on May 23^rd in Vancouver boasts a total of 219 lots and a pre-sale estimate of $11.5/16 million, the highest pre-sale auction estimate this country has ever seen. Says company Vice-President Robert Heffel, “We anticipate this to be our largest sale to date.” Not surprising when you have works such as Lawren Harris’s Pine Tree and Red House, Winter, City Painting II on offer (illustrated above right). Painted in 1924 and measuring 32” x 38” this remarkable and market-sexy work carries a pre-sale estimate of $800,000/1,200,000. With his 12” x 15” sketches now fetching up to $1.5 million this piece should comfortably exceed its expectations.

The sale, as you might expect, is overflowing with significant works including no less than four important oil sketches by Tom Thomson, each estimated at $300/400,000, with Spring Woods and Approaching Storm, Dog Point, particularly impressive. A magnificent 20” x 24” canvas from James Wilson Morrice entitled Paris Quai is another star lot carrying a ‘conservative’ estimate of $300/400,000. There’s also a wonderful fauvist work from Emily Carr that promises to exceed estimate. The 15” x 19” canvas of Oak Woods is valued at $200/300,000.

Asked about the current state of the art market Heffel said that “The art market worldwide remains very strong and as such the Spring season of Canadian art will be strong, adding to this strength will be the superb quality works that are upcoming in the Heffel sale.”