A painting by Lawren Harris has posted a record selling price for the Group of Seven artist at an auction in Vancouver.

“Pine Tree and Red House, Winter, City Painting II,” sold for $2.875 million, including the 15 per cent buyer’s premium.

The previous record for a Harris work was $2.2 million.

The 1924 painting, which depicts a red-brick house with green, shuttered windows that are partially obscured by a large, snow-covered pine tree in the foreground, blew past pre-sale estimates of $800,000-$1.2 million.

The Heffel Fine Art Auction House’s spring auction on Wednesday night featured seven rare paintings that could fetch more than $1 million each, including Pine Tree and Red House.

Ten other paintings by Harris were also on the auction block.

David Heffel, who co-owns the art auction house with his brother Robert Heffel, said a record number of people had seen the paintings during 13 days of previews.

A total of 222 paintings were part of the biannual auction that premiered in 1995 with $1 million in gross sales, with each work worth about $30,000.

Posted: 05|24|07 at 8:34 am. Filed under: Auction News.