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Heffel Fine Art Auction House, in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, will have some busy days ahead as it readies to accept telephone, online, and live bids on 27 pieces from The Hudson’s Bay Company’s extensive art collection.
On Tuesday, it showed off some of the marquee pieces from the historic company’s 4,400-item collection that are set to be sold.
Previews of those fine art works have been held in cities across the country, with Toronto’s starting today.
“The Hudson’s Bay commissioned well-known Canadian artist to paint historical scenes for their calendar and they would keep the original calendar painting. And so, these are these are some of the Canadian artists that they chose in the calendar paintings,” Robert Heffel, the company’s vice-president, told CTV News Toronto.
His brother David Heffel, who serves as the auction’s house’s president, called the collection “fabulous.”
“It documents the history of Canada, the development of Hudson’s Bay. … It’s a walk through Canadian art history and a walk through Canadian history.”
”It’s like going to a beautiful gallery, only it’s all very edited and curated and it’s absolutely stunning,” said Mary Lou, who came out on Tuesday to check out the pieces.
Among the favourites being auctioned off is a piece titled, Lights of a City Street,” a picture of Toronto in the 1890s by Canadian artist Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith.
“The artist has put himself in to the painting. This is the artist,” Robert Heffel said while discussing the piece.
“These are the newspaper sellers. This is the artist’s son.”
Art lover Christopher Varley says he’s old enough to remember the “big Bell-Smith” piece, sharing that he saw it often when he visited Arcadia Court on the eighth floor of the former Simpson Tower at Bay and Queen streets.
“Every everyone in my age saw the painting, so that’s the one I’m really excited about seeing,” he said.
The piece garnering the most attention, however, is one of a series former U.K Prime Minister Winston Churchill painted of Marrakesh.
“He gave the Marrakesh painting to U.S. President (Roosevelt) that later was sold for a million dollars. But then it sold … Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie put it up for auction in their divorce, and it sold in Canadian dollars for $16 million,” Robert Heffel said.
The fine art paintings will be going to the highest bidder in one week’s time.
Bidding is set to begin at 3 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Heffel’s Dedicated Auction Ballroom at 13 Hazelton Ave.
“This is how a modern day of fine art auction works. It’s the merger between the traditional to the innovative. And this is the technology that pilots Heffel Auction,” David Heffel said.
“We’ll have our pen and our gavel in our left and we’ll be looking for bids in the audience and on our devices here. It’s a lot of fun.”
Proceeds from the ongoing auction will help HBC’s creditors recover some of the nearly $1 billion they’re owed.
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Janice Golding
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