News
May 29, 2006

Lawren Harris’ Painting Sells For Nearly $1.1 Million

Roughly one year after being rescued from a basement where it had sat torn, tattered and forgotten for 40 years, Lawren Harris’s painting Figure with Rays of Light (Arctic Forms 111)  shattered Sotheby’s Canada presale estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. by selling for $1,095.000. including a buyer’s premium at their auction May 29th, 2006.

Harris completed this painting after his trip to the Arctic with fellow Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson in 1930.

Though art scholars knew about this Harris work, the painting itself was believed to have been lost.  The only records of its existence were a small sketch and black-and-white photo taken some time in the 1930s.

David Silcox of Sotheby’s Canada stumbled across it last year at an estate sale in Toronto.

Well-known Canadian art agent David Loch purchased the painting for an undisclosed Canadian collector.

Emily Carr’s painting Trunks and Glades sold for $439,500. far exceeding its presale estimate of $100,000.

The auction broke several records for Canadian artists.

Source:  The Toronto Star, Tuesday May 30th, 2006