A Million Dollar Bash

Monday, Sotheby's Canada will be holding an auction of "important Canadian works of art" at Ritchies on King St. East here in Toronto. For the first time in Canada, an auction house will be offering a guarantee, a secret minimum payment that an auction house agrees to pay the seller regardless of the results of the auction. The scuttlebutt around this auction is that a painting called Pine Trees at Sunset has been guaranteed for a million bones. I don't know how long this link will be active, but you can see the painting in question here. Just find the painting and click on the enlarge button for a good look. It's a nice painting in that famous Canadian style. Some people today might call it a "genre painting". There is certainly historical value, and add to that the romanticism around the death of Mr. Thomson (was he murdered in Algonquin park, or did he drown urinating off his canoe?). But Geez, don't you think a million bucks is a lot of dough for any painting?

There are some other high-priced works at the Monday auction as well, including a delightful Emily Carr painting called Cape Mudge, a dramatic painting of a totem pole in the landscape, which is estimated to be worth between $400k and $600k.

In a way, it's too bad that we have so many Canadian artists who can't get a few thousand or even a few hundred Canadianos for their works, when at the same time, we see a few select historical works land huge prices.