This record compares with that for an Australian painting of $A5,400,000 million (inc. BP) paid for Sidney Nolan’s First-Class Marksman, 1946 sold at Menzies, Australian & International Fine Art, Sydney, on 25/03/2010. Given the approximate parity of the Canadian and Australian dollars over time Australian painting appears to be lagging, especially if the size of the canvas is considered.
The Nolan measured 91 by 121 cm while the Canadian oil-on-canvas view of Alberta's Mount Ishbel in the Sawback Range of the Rocky Mountains in Banff National Park was a more impressive 152 by 178-centimetres.
Historically Canadian art prices had been much lower than Australian. However, the Harris which is believed to have gone to a member of the same dynasty responsible for Canada’s previous record probably attracted more local interest in the past because of a bigger spread of Canada’s current day Canadiana collectors.
It should have a more regionally-devoted Canadian collectors because the view is in Alberta, the nation’s main oil state although this resource was only just recovering from the commodity's price collapse.
The painting could also have been sold to the North American school as many collectors across the border are considered to have a vested interest in the “another school” of art which it represents, known as the North American. And the joker who has made this largely happen is American comedian Steve Martin.
The previous auction record for a Canadian painting was $C5.1 million and. Heffel’s had set the estimate more conservatively at $C3 million to $C5 million. Martin forecast before the sale that the painting could fetch $C10 million and said it could go across the border.
The patriot card however certainly appears to have worked. Fears that it might leave Canada helped the price soar although director and auctioneer David Heffel who knocked the painting down said he could not disclose the identity or nationality of the successful bidder.
The buzz is that it that Mountain Forms was purchased by David Thomson son of Ken Thomson also known as Lord Thomson of Fleet.
Lord Thomson, who died in 2011, was as shrew businessman who reduced his family’s large interest in newspapers after expanding his empire to include Thomson Travel and a big interest in North Sea oil.
Harris’ career began with his financing boxcar trips in 1918 and 1919, for himself and fellow members of the Group of Seven in Ontario to the Algoma region, painting in areas such as the Montreal River and Agwa Canyon. It later became more stark and even abstract as in the painting just sold. Some of Harris’ work invokes that of Queensland artist Kenneth McQueen.
The Harris could also have been wanted as a trophy painting by any number of rich Canadians. During Stephen Harper’s conservative rule, the odds had moved in favour of Canada’s wealthy during its years of government.
Some of these had increased their fortunes over Canada’s extra (18th) century which Australia did not have when vast lumber and trading fortunes were built there.
Martin himself might have wanted the painting as he was a devoted fan as Harris as the founder of Canada’s Group of Seven, Canada’s later more expressionist equivalent to Australia’s Heidelberg School. It was also known as the Algonquin School and was active from 1920 to 1933.
Steve Martin was reported to own three modest-sized canvases by Harris and was the co-curator and chief promoter of a well-received touring exhibition of about 30 Harris' that visited Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (where it drew almost 80,000 visitors) and Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario between October, 2015, and September last.
Included in the show, titled The Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris his work Mountain Forms featured on the exhibition catalogue back cover. Heffel announced the consignment of the painting to auction about two weeks after the show closed its Toronto run.
The price was a bonanza for Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd., which acquired the painting in 1984, and has been “streamlining” its corporate art collection since 2014.
Canadian art bounded past Australian art when Paul Kane’s painting of an event in Canada’s history sold for $C5.062-million 15 years ago. The painting was titled 1845 Scene in the Northwest: Portrait of John Henry Lefroy.
It was also thought to have gone to the elder Thomson who had also acquired many works by Cornelius Krieghoff, another historical painter, over the years
One contemporary Canadian artist has had an international value an abstract expressionist. Jean-Paul Riopelle has achieved a record of €2million for a work entitled La Forêt, but that as they say is not big bucks and no more than the top price for the Nolan.
Andrew Lloyd Webber momentarily internationalised Eugene Von Guerard when in 1996 when he bought View of Geelong for an Australian record of $1.98 million (IBP).
But the identity based on his contribution to German romantic painting did not last. Webber sold it back to Australia and it now alternates between the NGV and Geelong Art Gallery.
Mr Heffel said that a lot of new collectors with a new spirit of optimism had appeared on the scene in recent years. These were both American and Canadian, the Americans being buoyed by the strength of the American dollar.
Heffel did $C72 million of business last year taking advantage of the withdrawal from the market of other operators and consolidations. It did this on around 3000 works sold, The annual Australian turnover has been around 25,000 works, but the Australian figure includes second tier art auctions.
Canada’s changes in wealth patterns in recent years under a conservative Government appear to have mirrored those of the US with a great concentration of wealth yielding more buyers able to afford iconic paintings.
The strong markets were above $C100,000 and below $C30,000, The middle market was very quiet Mr Heffel said.
The venue might also have helped as the company changed from a tradaitional ballroom to the grand old Art Deco building that once was the Toronto Stock Exchange,
Australia’s big wealth holders with a passion for collecting, however, remain out of view or failed to materialise despite the WA and Queensland mining boom of the noughties, nor has there been any Australian equivalent to the Harris to test the market.
So much of it from the early period disappeared from the market for good into institutions in the 1980s.
Australian collectors made repeated appearance in the World’s Top 200 Collector lists during that decade but this now looks like somewhat of a fluke based on their access to borrowed funds and it all seems to have gone belly up.
Being next door to the United States, Canadian collectors appear to be more international as they are closer to the international US art market and did feature persistently in the list.
Canada and Australia of course are not entirely carbon copies of each other for while they both chase Captain Cook they differ from each in many vital respects.
The climate should help the Canadian market because more living Is indoors. There are also more of them than us. But with climate change the ice at the top of the market may be melting.
Canada did not have quite the huge turnover in its major paintings as Australia did late last century.
