The recording-breaking fall art auction season continued last night, with $1,667,500 paid for Jean-Paul Riopelle’s spectacular abstract painting, Il était une fois une ville (1954-’55) at the Heffel Art Auction in Toronto.
It’s the most ever spent on a Riopelle sold in Canada, although not for one sold outside the country.
The auction saw a total of about $11 million in sales in a bullish art market.
A second painting from the late Quebec artist went for $402,500.
A rare eight-page letter from Sir John A. Macdonald dated April 9, 1867, went for $34,500 to an anonymous buyer from Western Canada, thus keeping the letter from the country’s first prime minister in the country.
Northern Lights (1916-’17) by Tom Thomson went for $776,250, the second-highest price ever paid for the painter’s work. International bidding over the phones was building throughout the week. Only hours before last night’s auction, Heffel officials predicted that sales would far exceed the range of between $6 million and $8 million originally forecast for the night.
“That’s a signal that Heffel is selling beyond Canada in this auction,” an auction house spokesman said yesterday.
And it’s Jean-Paul Riopelle’s soaring sales that are helping to bring international attention to the Canadian market, the auction house believes.
Riopelle and Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris have dominated the Canadian art market for years.
Prior to last night, sales of Harris’s works by the country’s leading auction houses over the years totalled $39.5 million; Riopelle’s total sales amounted to about $34 million. Harris accounted for 15 of the top 50 Canadian paintings sold at auction, Riopelle for 18.
But Harris’s sales were made in Canada, while the Riopelles were also sold internationally, said the spokesperson.
Recent international sales have set new records. Earlier in the month, the $491 million (U.S.) spent on Impressionist and modern art at Christie’s New York was the most ever paid in any art auction.

Posted: 11|25|06 at 11:31 am. Filed under: Auction News.