Private collection featuring Emily Carr, Paul Kane expected to net $20M at auction

TORONTO – A Toronto auction house is set to sell a private collection that includes pieces by such eminent artists as Emily Carr, Tom Thomson and Paul Kane.

A representative for Cowley Abbott says the collection consists of a total of more than 150 artworks, many of them museum-quality, that are expected to collectively net upwards of $20 million over a series of three auctions.

Cowley Abbott says the first sale of more than 50 works on Dec. 1 is expected to fetch a total of $8 million to $12 million.

Highlights include Carr’s 1912 work “The Totem of the Bear and the Moon,” which is expected to collect $2 million to $3 million, and Thomson’s 1916 fall scene “Petawawa Gorges,” which is estimated to be worth $1 million to $1.5 million.

Auctioneers say the rare Kane canvas “Ojibwa Camp in the Spider Islands,” circa 1845, will go under the hammer for the first time with an estimated price tag of $900,000 to $1.2 million.

Art lovers can view the works for free at Cowley Abbott’s gallery in downtown Toronto from Oct. 28 to Nov. 30. More than 100 remaining paintings in the collection will hit the auction block in 2023.

Cowley Abbott says the Toronto-based owners, who wish to remain anonymous, curated the collection over 60 years, and many of the works have been exhibited in major gallery shows both in Canada and internationally.

“The sale of such a storied collection as this one is an extremely rare event,“ vice-president and co-founder Lydia Abbott said in a statement.

This report by The Canadian Press was first publishedOct. 13, 2022.

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