WINNIPEG (Ashley Prest, Winnipeg Free Press) Winnipeg art dealer and gallery owner Ryan Mayberry has stepped into the online-auction side of the business as a partner in Consignor Canadian Fine Art.  The new company, which will officially open its doors Aug. 1, will be located in Toronto across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario.  Mayberry will continue to operate his Mayberry Fine Art locations in Winnipeg and Toronto along with a partner gallery on the West Coast. The new company is a separate, full-time auction venture which will focus on high-end Canadian art.  “This an entirely new venture and it is really in response to how the industry is moving,” Mayberry said, adding Mayberry Fine Art tested the market last January with an online auction.  “A lot more clients are shopping online and like the convenience of it, and at the same time, we’re getting a lot of private sellers who want to sell items that way,” he said.  Consignor Canadian Fine Art is a partnership between Rob Cowley (former vice-president and chief auctioneer with Joyner Waddington’s Canadian Fine Art), Lydia Abbott (former Canadian fine art specialist with Joyner Waddington’s) and Mayberry, the founder of Consignor.ca.  “They’re buying it online but the art work is being handled by us. Everything has come into our location, it’s been inspected by us, authenticated by us, we provide full condition reports and the packing, shipping and delivery of it is completely managed by us,” Mayberry said.  “They get the same service that they would if they walked into a gallery or auction house and bought something in person.”  The new company has been started just a few months after Sotheby’s Canada announced it was ending regular live auctions in the country.

Source (with files from the Canadian Press)

(Toronto – For Immediate Release) A new partnership between one of the country’s leading Canadian art galleries and two auction industry veterans brings a new presence to the Canadian auction landscape.

Consignor Canadian Fine Art will officially open its doors on August 1st at 326 Dundas Street West (directly across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario), moving the former Mayberry Fine Art division of Consignor.ca into a separate, full-time auction venture. The new company will be a partnership including Rob Cowley (former Vice President and Chief Auctioneer with Joyner Waddington’s Canadian Fine Art), Lydia Abbott (former Canadian Fine Art Specialist with Joyner Waddington’s and Office Director with Heffel Fine Art) and Ryan Mayberry (Partner at Mayberry Fine Art and Founder of Consignor.ca), who will act as principals.

Consignor will offer a full range of auction and appraisal services, commencing with fall sales of Canadian art, including a November auction of Fine Canadian Art: an online auction which will feature works by important Canadian artists. The November sale (the first of semi-annual online auctions of premiere works by historical and post-war Canadian artists) will be accompanied by a full-colour and academic auction catalogue and extended live previews in the newly-renovated gallery space. The firm will also offer appraisal services, with documents written to International Society of Appraiser and USPAP standards (with both Cowley and Abbott being accredited members of the ISA).

The partnership brings together the private sale and auction industries: Mayberry Fine Art, with galleries in Winnipeg, Toronto, and British Columbia, has over 40 years of experience in the Canadian art market and are best known for privately brokering sales of rare and important works of Canadian art as well as representing some of the nation’s top contemporary artists; and Rob Cowley and Lydia Abbott, with over twenty years of combined experience within the auction industry, both playing managerial and senior specialist roles with Joyner Waddington’s and Heffel’s.

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