TORONTO.- One of Canada’s preeminent, most-well known and extensively-exhibited private collections of historical Canadian art has become the highest-grossing single private collection of Canadian art to ever sell at auction, achieving $36.6 million and setting 29 artist records.

The collection, sold in a series of three landmark sales with Cowley Abbott beginning in the fall of 2022, had its final sale Wednesday night in Toronto at the Globe and Mail Centre and online at cowleyabbott.ca. Across the three sales, nine artworks sold in excess of $1 million with 115 of the 150 works of art sold exceeding ̶ and often doubling, tripling and more ̶ the high-end, presale auction estimate (all results are inclusive of the buyer’s premium). Expertly curated over 60 years, the collection was rich in rare, prime example and museum-quality paintings, drawings and sculptures by Canada’s most celebrated historical artists, including the members of the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Cornelius Krieghoff, Helen McNicoll, Clarence Gagnon and Paul Peel, to name a few.

During the final sale last night, a bidding frenzy helped to break eight artist records, including:

• The Group of Seven’s Frederick H. Varley’s Sun and Wind, Georgian Bay, 1916 or 1920 drew heated and unprecedented bidding, driving the price to a record-breaking $984,000, the highest amount ever paid for any artwork by the artist, and more than 10 times the high-end, pre-auction estimate of $90,000.

• Also selling for $984,000 and setting another artist record was Clarence Gagnon’s very rare, large-scale canvas Ice Harvest, Quebec, 1935, depicting a highly celebrated and cherished subject for the artist. The artwork significantly exceeded the previous record of $679,500.

• Impressionist painter Helen McNicoll’s The Chintz Sofa, circa 1912, was a popular lot in the final auction, achieving $888,000, more than doubling the presale estimate and setting a new artist record. The oil canvas has exhibited extensively and internationally for over a century, and most recently in the 2023 exhibition, Cassatt‒McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

• Setting an artist record was Charlotte M.B. Schreiber’s stunning 1878 canvas Don’t Be Afraid, which was acquired by the collectors in 1968. Achieving $624,000, the artwork sold for nearly five times the previous artist record, which was also set in fall 2022 by another painting from the same private collection.

Other notable results from the collection include:

• A jewel of the collection was an Emily Carr masterwork, The Totem of the Bear and the Moon, 1912, selling for $3.12 million, coming close to challenging the artist record of $3.39 million. Sold for the first time at auction on December 1, 2022, this rare canvas was featured in important exhibitions for more than a century.




• Also offered for public sale for the first time on December 1, 2022, Tom Thomson’s Petawawa Gorges (1916) doubled the low-end estimate, selling for $2.22 million to excited audience applause. The painting was part of the artist’s family’s collection for over fifty years before being acquired by the collection owners in 1972. Other versions of this composition are in major public collections across Canada. A second work by the iconic painter, a rare sketch for a known canvas, Evening, Pine Island, also exceeded expectations, selling for $1.68 million that same evening.

• Lawren Harris’ widely exhibited masterwork Quiet Lake (Northern Painting 12), circa 1926-1928 sold for $2.16M on June 8, 2023.

• Emily Carr’s majestic depiction of totem poles in Kitwancool, circa 1923 had excited bidding, achieving $1.92M on June 8, 2023.

• Tom Thomson’s rare oil on panel Ragged Oaks, which was owned by the artist’s family before being acquired by the private collectors more than 50 years ago, also exceeded presale estimates, selling for $1.8M on June 8, 2023.

• Internationally celebrated artist James Wilson Morrice’s rare canvas Neige, Canada (Snow Canada) (circa 1905) doubled the estimate selling for $1.26 million in its auction debut on December 1, 2022.

• The oldest painting in the collection, a rare canvas by Paul Kane, Ojibwa Camp in the Spider Islands (c. 1845), sold for $1.08 million on December 1, 2022.

• Also debuting at auction, Lawren Harris’ study for a canvas in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, North Shore, Lake Superior, doubled expectations, selling for $1.03 million on December 1, 2022.

• The December 1, 2022 auction set a new artist record for Group of Seven artist AY Jackson with the large oil canvas Tadenac, November achieving $936,000, exceeding the previous record of $760,500.