Ed Note: Republished with permission from Christopher Varley's personal blog.
Torben Kristiansen
Torben Kristiansen, the owner of Vancouver’s The Art Emporium, was the Heffels’ most important client during their early years in the auction business.
Torben’s investments in Vancouver real estate provided the income to spend freely, and he liked spending on art. He thought that he could anticipate and shape future demand, and was prepared to wait 20 years if necessary to be proved correct. He often paid dearly, setting new records, frustrating competitors, spurring them to bid higher when similar items turned up.
Torben tacked whatever he liked onto his auction purchases. He didn’t need sales to survive, and when collectors gasped at his prices he’d brush them aside. “Find another.” Paintings that auction underbidders ached to own and would have treasured for life leaned against the wall on the floor of his office. Inventory piled up.
It’s not that Torben didn’t sell. It’s just that collectors had to pay his price. In about 1981, an Edmonton collector showed me a Harris panel that had caught her eye on a trip to Vancouver. Inflation was running high at the time, and art was widely viewed as a hard asset, something that would hold its value, ride the wave. Still, $35,000 a lot to fork over.
“Mr. Kristiansen, your Harris won’t be worth $35,000 for another year,” the collector objected.
“Why wait?” he replied.
She bought the painting.
Terminal cynics will view all this activity as “painting the tape” or market manipulation, but Torben was really just an old-fashioned market maker. He burned the candle at both ends and enjoyed doing it. A Dane by birth who initially trained as a fighter pilot, he lived as he chose in a country that still counts its pennies. Collectors and dealers — not just auctioneers — benefitted from his reckless largesse. He added liquidity, bucked up the troops.
Which continues, for now that Torben has gone to the big flight school in the sky, his estate is sending unsold inventory to the Heffels for a second go round.
Will the estate benefit from these sales? Yes, of course, but what about price appreciation? Did Torben buy shrewdly? Was he rewarded for waiting?
The following resales don’t really answer these questions, for they only go back to Torben’s 2008 purchases from the Heffels. That’s 16 years, not long enough to fully reflect the Canadian art market’s long price cycles.
Taken back 25 or 30 years, some of these returns would look dramatically different:
E.J. Hughes, Early May at Qualicum Beach, 1966
- 2008: $304,200
- 2024: $511,250
B.C. Binning, Two Ships with Orange Sun, ca. 1950
- 2011: $52,650
- 2024: $58,250
E.J. Hughes, Looking South over Sooke Harbour, 1966
- 2014: $212,400
- 2024: $229,250
B.C. Binning, Four Ships in Variable Weather No. 1, 1949
- 2011: $99,450
- 2024: $67,250
Gordon Smith, SA 13 Landscape, ca. 1965
- 2011: $70,200
- 2024: $67,250
Emily Carr, Gnarled Tree, ca. 1913-1920
- 2011: $234,000
- 2024: $265,250
Emily Carr, Woodland Interior, ca. 1938
- 2016: $271,400
- 2024: $205,250
Jean-Paul Riopelle, Nacelle, 1962
- 2008: $74,750
- 2024: $115,250
J.W. Morrice, Café-Paris
- 2010: $76,050
- 2024: $61,250
Tom Thomson, Tamarack Swamp, 1915
- 2008: $1,150,000
- 2024: $2,101,250
F.H. Varley, Clouds and a Tree, ca. 1940
- 2011: $35,100
- 2024: $49,250
J.E.H. MacDonald, Cloudy Sky, Thornhill Church, August 12, 1931
- 2011: $49,725
- 2024: $49,250
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