Cowley Abbott est ravi de présenter, pour la saison des enchères d’automne 2025, une sélection distinguée d’œuvres d’art québécois couvrant plus d’un siècle d’innovation artistique et d’expression culturelle. Des premiers portraits à l’abstraction d’après-guerre, ces œuvres retracent l’évolution de la vision artistique dans la province.
Les scènes intimes d’enfants et les croquis de la France réalisés par J.W. Morrice illustrent comment l’artiste a fait le pont entre les traditions académiques du XIXᵉ siècle et l’émergence d’une vision moderne dans la peinture canadienne.
Une remarquable huile de 1950 par Jean Paul Riopelle marque le début de sa série de mosaïques la plus célébrée. L’artiste venait alors de s’établir à Paris, où il se sentit libéré du poids oppressant du contrôle de l’Église catholique sur la société québécoise. Riopelle chercha à inventer son propre langage visuel et à créer librement, loin de tout dogme et de toute contrainte.
Alfred Pellan fut l’un des premiers artistes québécois à introduire le modernisme européen au Canada. Après avoir étudié et travaillé à Paris dans les années 1920 et 1930, il retourna à Montréal avec un style audacieux et imaginatif influencé par le surréalisme, le cubisme et le fauvisme. L’œuvre de Pellan est rare sur le marché des enchères, et nous sommes ravis de présenter cette saison deux œuvres dynamiques, Chasse sous-marine et Au soleil noir, toutes deux datées de 1958.
Cowley Abbott a également l’honneur d’offrir deux œuvres rares de Paul-Émile Borduas, figure centrale de l’art abstrait canadien et chef de file des Automatistes. Défenseur de la liberté artistique, Borduas contribua à ouvrir une nouvelle ère de modernité au Canada et inspira les transformations sociales et culturelles qui ont suivi lors de la Révolution tranquille. Les Trois baigneuses, une huile sur toile de 1941, témoigne de son intérêt pour l’approche formelle de Paul Cézanne, cette œuvre s’inspirant particulièrement des Grandes baigneuses du Philadelphia Museum of Art.
La gouache Abstractionno. 10 ou Figure athénienne fait partie d’un ensemble de quarante-cinq œuvres exposées au printemps 1942 à Montréal lors de l’exposition Œuvres surréalistes de Borduas. Cette présentation est largement reconnue comme le point de départ du mouvement automatiste montréalais.
Peinte en 1964, au cœur de sa « période classique » la plus connue, Jeune fille en jaune illustre l’exploration par Jean Paul Lemieux de la figure humaine placée dans un vaste paysage ambigu, évoquant immobilité, introspection et humanisme.
Ces œuvres célèbrent la contribution exceptionnelle de la province à l’histoire de l’art canadien, dans sa recherche de beauté, son esprit d’expérimentation et la force durable de son identité. Le Québec a constamment été une force motrice, particulièrement dans les moments de changement et d’innovation artistique. Cowley Abbott est honoré de présenter cette sélection d’œuvres et a hâte d’accueillir les collectionneurs pour découvrir et enchérir sur ces chefs-d’œuvre lors de la vente aux enchères de maîtres canadiens du 26 novembre. Cliquez ici pour consulter le catalogue de la vente.
Join Art Specialist Katherine Meredith as she speaks with Simone Ludlow and Erika Veh, designers of handmade one-of-a-kind cushions using vintage fabrics. Their company Ludlow & Veh also offers interior design and art advisory consultations. With backgrounds in art history, auctions, design and marketing, they share Katherine’s passion for collecting art with patience and intention.
How would you describe your design style?
Slow design. Not all the same style, not all the same era. Balance, texture, layers, not matching, eclectic. We love including vintage pieces and antiques, something with a patina and a story to it. If you do it intentionally and lovingly, it will work. Never feel like something is done. There is an expression that goes something like- “a room is only finished when you run out of money!”
Where do you find inspiration?
Art, nature, travel, film. Pedro Pascal’s apartment in the recent film Materialists, and movies like Home Alone, The Shining, I am Love, and The Birdcage. We are inspired by place and time. Matisse interior paintings. Unusual colour combinations we spot on the street or in nature.
Why do you think original fine art is an important part of interior design?
It’s a layer that finishes everything. Art adds a depth and a tone of your own personality to your home. There is something lively to a home filled with original art. It takes emotion. You don’t want your house to look like a staged showroom, or the same as the house down the block. A mass-produced print from a box store doesn’t elicit pleasure, it just fills a wall. Art adds personality, meaning, joy.
What advice would you give to someone who is new to art collecting?
Buy what you love, and then your house will be a reflection of your personality. It doesn’t matter if the artist is new, local, unknown or from the past. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It should be something that speaks to you. Don’t set out to buy art that matches your decor. If you love it, it will work and you will find a place for it. Have a bit of patience. People want things so quickly and so effortlessly, but it means so much more when you take your time and put effort into it, and it shows. You feel better about it because it’s a reflection of you.
How do you approach auctions specifically, in comparison to other ways of acquiring art? Do you find any advantages or challenges?
Advantages: you see such a broader scope of art, and artists you wouldn’t normally see or necessarily seek out. Better value. There’s no inflated art gallery commission – the price is what the market will stand.
Challenges: the high volume of artwork – you have to have the patience to look through the entire listing. Everything at auctions is framed “as-is” and it can be difficult to imagine a work in a new frame that is better suited to your space. But framing is everything and can really transform the art and the room!
If you could choose any artworks from Canadian art history to put in your own living room, what would you choose and why?
Erika: There are many Canadian artists I admire and support. If I have to select just one piece – I would have to say Horse and Train (1954) by Alex Colville. Its haunting simplicity captures the tension between nature and machine, which feels very relevant at this time in the world. It also evokes a sense of Romanticism in the solitary, noble horse confronting the unstoppable force of modernity. A reminder that life is constantly moving, changing, and that inevitably time escapes us all.
Simone: This is almost impossible to answer, so I’m simply going with immediate impulses. I love Alex Colville, and I especially love his works featuring dogs, so perhaps Stove. It’s such an intimate and tender piece, and it captures so well the simple (and magical) joy of sharing your life with a dog.
The original Stove painting resides in a private collection. A serigraph was sold by Cowley Abbott in 2018.
I also love Jessie Oonark, so almost anything by her. I love her use of colour, and the bold, graphic nature of her work.
Untitled by Jessie Oonark. Sold by Cowley Abbott in 2014.
Margaux Williamson’s more recent works of interiors are also favourites. As I mentioned before, I gravitate to pieces featuring interiors, and Margaux’s are so interesting and I find them entirely captivating.
And I mean, who wouldn’t want a Lawren Harris iceberg?
If you could choose any artworks from ALL of art history to put in your own living room, what would you choose and why?
Simone: This is truly an impossible question! Based entirely on immediate instincts – The Little Street by Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum. I also have always loved David Hockney; he’s so joyful and loves life, and that is so apparent through his work. I saw his recent retrospective in Paris, and I am particularly drawn to the paintings of his home in LA and his British landscapes. Paul Nash’s 1930’s painting Harbour and Room at Tate Modern has also been a constant fascination. I also absolutely love the art and design from the turn-of-the-century Vienna Secession movement led by Gustav Klimt.
Erika: If I could select a piece of art for my home, it would be Sonia Delaunay’s Electric Prisms (1914). I had the pleasure of viewing it in New York, Guggenheim’s exhibition “Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris 1910-1930”. Both the scale and bold rhythmic motions of colour have stayed with me ever since. I have also always carried the same admiration for the Nike of Samothrace at the Louvre, a timeless emblem of victory, hope and forward momentum.
Which artworks from our September online auction do you have your eye on? And how would you style them in a room?
Simone: What a wealth of beauty to choose from! One selection would be Lawren Harris’ Study of a Verandah. I love witnessing the traces of an artist’s process, and in this piece the sketches of the trees and the script on the paper’s reverse delight me. The verandah itself is also so inviting – the architecture draws the viewer in. I would love to sit there and have a glass of wine.
Lot 199. Lawren Harris, Study of a Verandah. Graphite. Estimate: $3,000 – $4,000
I also gravitate to Fortin’s Montréal. I love his use of colour and the somewhat chaotic, dense scene he has created. I went to school in Montréal, and this piece evokes the feeling of the city for me – layered, busy, a bit gritty, beautiful, full of life.
Lot 125. Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Montréal. Watercolour. Estimate: $10,000-15,000
I also must include some more graphic pieces – I always love them for balance. The colours in Fly me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra (who knew?) are beautiful, and I appreciate the feeling of motion that it suggests. Philomène by Jacques Hurtubise echoes the Sinatra piece in an interesting way, and I would love them displayed together. The blue and red are arresting, and I love their juxtaposition with the off-white ground.
Lot 17. Frank Sinatra, Fly Me To The Moon. Colour lithograph. Estimate: $900-1,200
Erika: I am in love with Jim Ritchie’s female figure sculpture from the Quebec lot! It inspires me because it reminds me of the beauty, resilience and softness I recognize in the women I cherish in my life.
I also have a black and white striped marble plinth where this sculpture would look so stunning!
Lot 152. Jim Ritchie, Female Figure; Cubist Nude. Bronze sculpture; pastel on paper. Estimate: $900-1,200
What I love about Winter Sleighing Scene by A.Y. Jackson is that, while the artist captures a distinctly Canadian winter scene, he departs from the expected palette of icy blues and greys, choosing instead a feminine blush for the sleigh and lively touches of pink in the trees. A choice that brings unexpected warmth and a smile to the winter scene.
I was also drawn to Fly Me To The Moon by Sinatra for its bold shapes and vibrant interplay of colour, which is a style reminiscent of one of my favourite short lived art movements; Orphism – with its rhythmic energy and sense of movement. And perhaps also because the artist was also the infamous crooner!
For more information on Ludlow & Veh, check out their website and Instagram. And for further conversation on collecting art with intention, join Simone, Erika and the Cowley Abbott team for our 5 à 7 on Thursday, September 11th. RSVP at collect@cowleyabbott.ca.
We are excited to be offering three prints by master printmaker Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988) in our September Prints & Multiples online auction. Hayter studied chemistry and geology in England and worked for several years as a research scientist in the Middle East. He painted during his free time and, in 1926, moved to Paris to become a full-time artist. The following year he established Atelier 17, a printmaking workshop where artists such as Max Ernst, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso could experiment with different techniques and media. In 1940, Hayter moved his studio to New York, where he would operate for nearly a decade before returning to France.
There, he attracted not only European painters and printmakers taking refuge from the war, particularly those affiliated with Surrealism, but also young American artists interested in the ideas these exiles brought with them. The exposure to the European artists and Hayter’s teaching had an enormous impact on American artists, many of whom were affiliated with the New York School, and greatly affected the future of printmaking in the United States. Jackson Pollock was influenced by Hayter in New York, particularly by his emphasis on automatism and reliance on the unconscious. The Atelier helped shape the early years of Abstract Expressionism and became one of the most influential graphic arts workshops of the twentieth century.
Lot 17 Stanley William Hayter Le chas de l’aiguille, 1946 Estimate: $800 – 1,000
This beautiful etching Chas de l’aiguille has a controlled and sinuous arrangement of thin lines. The free-flowing lines appear to be spontaneously drawn, recalling the automatism that inspired Surrealism. The etching is nearly abstract, with female anatomical features emerging from the tangled lines. Chas de l’aiguille, which translates to “Eye of the needle,” is particularly remarkable and rare because it dates to 1946—making it one of Hayter’s earliest prints executed post-war while living in New York.
Lot 18 Stanley William Hayter Day & Night, 1952 Estimate: $1,500 – 2,500
Day and Night is a beautiful colour aquatint with etching by Hayter dating to 1952. At this time, Hayter would have been back in France while keeping ties with his American students and contemporaries in New York as Abstract Expressionism was exploding on the art scene. This print, with very loose references to human features, shows the artist’s transition from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism and from figuration to abstraction.
Lot 16 Stanley William Hayter Sealed Web, 1968 Estimate: $1,500 – 2,500
The third print by Hayter in this month’s auction is another colour aquatint with etching entitled Sealed Web. Entirely abstract with no reference to figuration and executed in a bright yet simplified colour palette of orange and blue, the work is a product of its time, dating to 1968. By this point, Abstract Expressionism had peaked and branched out into other abstract movements, including Color-Field painting, characterized by large areas of bright colours. The vibrations created by the layered web of lines also bear similarities to Op Art—a movement that emerged in the mid-1960s and focused on creating optical illusions for the viewer.
Un paysage magnifique d’Emily Carr, une sculpture en or de 22 carats par le célèbre artiste Haïda Bill Reid et une toile enchanteresse de Daphne Odjig, sont parmi les points saillants de la vente aux enchères de Consignor, laquelle aura lieu le 29 mai à Toronto.
Consignor Canadian Fine Art soulignera la diversité du Canada lors de la prochaine vente en salle semestrielle qui aura lieu le mardi 29 mai au musée Gardiner à Toronto. Le chef-d’œuvre de William Kurelek, Hot Day in Kensington Market (1972), figure parmi les œuvres exemplaires qui reflètent le multiculturalisme du Canada d’un océan à l’autre.
La scène animée de Kurelek au marché Kensington à Toronto durant les années 70 représente diverses nationalités parmi les commerces locaux, y compris une boulangerie hongroise, une boucherie juive et un marché aux poissons portugais. Le tableau, toujours dans son cadre original (conçu par l’artiste), était l’une des 21 œuvres de Kurelek qui faisaient partie d’une exposition acclamée, « Toronto », que l’artiste décrit comme « représentant l’âme de la ville ». Bien que de nombreux tableaux de la série aient étés présentés aux enchères au cours des années, ce sera la première fois que Hot Day in Kensington Market sera sur le marché d’enchères (estimation de 150 000 $ – 200 000 $).
« William Kurelek est l’un des artistes et conteurs les plus célèbres du Canada, bien-aimé pour ses thèmes fantaisistes et charmants, allant de ses souvenirs d’enfance dans une ferme au Manitoba à sa série bien connue de Toronto », dit Rob Cowley, président de Consignor. « Hot Day in Kensington Market est l’une des scènes représentant Toronto les plus populaires et les plus attrayantes, et il est considéré comme un travail important par les collectionneurs de Kurelek, célébrant l’identité canadienne, le multiculturalisme et la ville que l’artiste adorait, lors d’une chaude journée d’été ».
La vente aux enchères du printemps de Consignor présentera également deux œuvres exceptionnelles d’artistes de renommée internationale et avant-gardistes de l’art autochtone, Daphne Odjig et Bill Reid. Odjig était la force motrice du groupe « The Professional Native Indian Artists Association », familièrement connue à l’époque sous le nom de « The Indian Group of Seven », et a contribué à faire connaître l’art autochtone au premier plan. Family Ties d’Odjig, une acrylique sur toile de 36” X 34″ peinte en 1981, n’a jamais été offerte aux enchères, venant d’une collection d’entreprise canadienne (estimation de 30 000 $ – 40 000 $).
L’artiste Haïda Bill Reid était considéré comme le huitième membre non officiel du groupe d’artistes fondé par Odjig. Il a fait sa marque en tant que sculpteur, réputé pour ses œuvres monumentales représentant l’art et la vie Haïda. Reid est largement reconnu pour la revitalisation des arts autochtones de la côte du Nord-Ouest; il a créé des bijoux, de la sculpture de divers médiums, y compris du cèdre, du jade et de métaux précieux. Une sculpture rare en or de 22 carats, « Chief of the Undersea World » (valeur estimée de 125 000 $ à 175 000 $) a été sculptée pendant la période de production du monument de 18 pi en bronze à l’extérieur de l’aquarium de Vancouver. Ce sera la première édition en or de ses sculptures emblématiques d’orques à être offerte aux enchères.
D’autres points saillants de la vente en salle du printemps 2018 de Consignor:
• Emily Carr, Logged Land, 23” x 34.75” huile sur papier montée sur toile (estimation 275 000 $ – 325 000 $)
Les œuvres d’art sont présentement exposées à la galerie Consignor Canadian Fine Art, au 326, rue Dundas Ouest. Pour de plus amples renseignements sur l’exposition et la vente en salle, ainsi que pour accéder au catalogue en ligne, veuillez consulter le site internet consignor.ca. La vente se tiendra le mardi 29 mai, au musée Gardiner (111, Queen’s Park, Toronto).
Consignor’s Online Auction of Works on Paper, Prints & Books is a fantastic place to begin for someone new to the world of collecting art. The February sale offers a selection of prints, drawings, oil and watercolour paintings, photography and books to choose from in a broad range of prices, for both the emerging and seasoned collector. Purchasing a work on paper is often a more affordable opportunity to own an original work of art, or a print by a prominent artist whose original works are less accessible.
Presented below are some great examples of quality artworks offered in the February auction, all of which have estimates below $1000. Browse by your preferred subject matter, from calming landscapes, still lifes and street scenes to bold abstracts and expressive figural works. Keep in mind there is a total of 237 lots in the auction, so please visit our online catalogue for the entire selection.
LANDSCAPES
Lot #219: RFM McInnis
Farm in Sunshine
watercolour, 9 x 12 ins
Estimated: $150.00 – $200.00
