Lawren Harris, whose Mountains East of Maligne Lake painting sold for $3-million at auction, got a profile boost from U.S. comedian Steve Martin.Heffel Inc./The Globe and Mail
The snow caps in Lawren Harris's Mountains East of Maligne Lake lie like a baby's blanket over the reclining mountain terrain. Price at auction: $3-million.
Another work by the Group of Seven painter – Lynx Mountain, Mt. Robson, BC/Mountain Sketch XLI – shows mountain tops covered as if by latte froth. Price at auction: $1.3-million.
And with its entirely different take on Canadian cool, Jean-Paul Riopelle's kinetic Vent du nord, a symphony of criss-crossing colours, powered by the vigour and promise of 1950s-era abstraction, smashed "the world record for the artist previously set in Paris," as reported by auction house Heffel Fine Art, which sold the painting last May. Price at auction: $7.4-million.
These prices could easily have casual observers believing that the Canadian art market had a rather superstar year in 2017.
Or did it?
This perception of giddy highs is no doubt boosted by international auctions reaching oxygen-mask altitudes, principally Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi selling at Christie's in New York in November for $450.3-million (U.S.), as the painted visage of Christ looked on in an expression of gauzy tranquillity.
The painting showed that the art market is still a prime draw for the wealthiest, even if the painting, which broke the world's record for any piece of art work sold at auction, came with less than gushing love from many art experts. Some saw the auction price as marketing triumphing over clear-eyed art appreciation.
Then there was the contemporary Untitled, a painting of a colourful skull by Jean-Michel Basquiat, produced in 1982 and which broke the $100-million threshold at Sotheby's in New York in May. It sold for $110.5-million.
In the past, the Canadian art market invariably tended to be described as separate from the sanguine excesses of the international market. Canada is instead forever building slowly, forever developing, observers say. And while that is partly true, what is changing is the clear international interest in the Canadian art market, particularly major works by major Canadian artists.
"The Canadian art market has grown tremendously, but it has been building up over time," said Robert Heffel, vice-president of Heffel Fine Art, speaking from Vancouver. Predominantly, auction buyers for Canadian artwork tend to be Canadians. "To grow the Canadian art market, we do need to think globally."
This is helped by international exhibits, such as the Harris exhibit curated by U.S. actor and comedian Steve Martin at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in late 2015-early 2016, which included a stop at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, before showing at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
Oakville, Ont.-based art consultant Hughene Acheson describes Martin-level star power, along with the film Maudie about Nova Scotia painter Maud Lewis, as contributing not only to increasing recognition, but also to a certain connoisseurship toward Canadian art.
"When you're talking about headlines and the highest prices achieved, even in the context of someone like Lawren Harris, the works that are captivating people are the works that are the best of the best," she said. "But is there a real, legitimate trickle down effect to all subsequent works by him?"
In other words, she wonders if the highest bidders are still choosy, that it's not the case of all prices rising.
Riopelle's Vent du nord may have soared past its estimated auction price range of $1-million (Canadian) to $1.5-million, according to Heffel's press release following the May auction. But Harris's Mountains East of Maligne Lake stayed obediently within its $2.5-million to $3.5-million estimated range in November. (This year alone, Heffel Fine Art sold four Canadian paintings for more than $1-million each, Mr. Heffel said.)
Of note, City Rain, by acclaimed early-20th-century Canadian painter David Milne, sold for $421,250 in May, above the $275,000 to $325,000 estimate. So, there's an expectation that other Milne works may be poised for wider attention from buyers.
Joseph Rumi of Rumi Galleries in Oakville noted examples of other painters, such as Leonard Brooks, who spent a great deal of his life in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. "There are exceptional pieces of his from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that people are now starting to take a look at. And I think you'll see that happening with a lot of Canadian artists' work."
The biggest room for growth is in postwar, contemporary Canadian art, particularly in the secondary auction market (as opposed to art galleries). With this as well, interest is growing, in part because contemporary works are often less set on depicting the Canadian landscape, the Group of Seven's favourite go-to, but on more cosmopolitan themes.
"Thank you, Group of Seven, [but] now others can contribute with more of a social landscape lens, which I think is really exciting, and is what we are beginning to see," said Stuart Keeler, senior curator of Toronto-Dominion Bank's contemporary art and Inuit art collection.
One of the artists he mentioned, for instance, is Sandra Brewster, whose work has touches of both urban and natural landscapes, but also the landscape of the mind, in terms of cultural identity.
The question is how Canada differentiates itself, Keeler said. With older paintings, it was often the uniqueness of Canada's physical identity, its natural landscapes. For contemporary art, it's often about understanding newer themes of diversity and inclusion.
In both cases, it's about understanding the ways in which Canadian artists, whether past masters or contemporary artists, see the world differently, in a uniquely Canadian way, noted Keeler, and letting people see themselves reflected in those differences.