Emily Carr Painting Bought for $50 US To Go to Auction

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Emily Carr, “Masset, Q.C.I.,” 1912 (courtesy of Heffel Fine Art)

An Emily Carr painting bought at a barn sale for $50 US a few months ago is set to go to auction in Canada.

But before it goes on sale, it will be on view in select cities across Canada.

It will be on view at Heffel Gallery in Calgary Oct. 4 to 6, along with three other works by Carr.

It will then be shown at Heffel in Vancouver from Oct. 16 to 21, followed by Montreal from Oct. 31 to Nov. 5. It will be on view from Nov. 15 to 19 in Toronto, and will then go to to auction in Toronto, through Heffel's Digital Saleroom and online on Nov. 20.

It has an estimated value of $100,000 to $200,000.

New York art dealer Allen Treibitz found the painting in the Hamptons a few months ago, according to a story by Canadian Press. 

He says he was unfamiliar with Carr’s name but felt there was something special about the artwork. “It stood out from everything else in that barn,” he said in the news story. 

When he reached out to Heffel Fine Art in Canada to inquire about the work, he began to understand the magnitude of what he had found. 

“We were provided photos and there was no doubt in my mind that this was an exciting Cinderella discovery,” Heffel president David Heffel told Canadian Press.

Entitled Masset, Q.C.I., the artwork was painted in 1912 and shows an Indigenous memorial post that stood in Masset, a village on the Haida Gwaii archipelago. It is believed to have been hanging in the barn in the U.S. since the 1930s, when Carr likely gave it to her friend Nell Cozier.

Heffel told Canadian Press that the painting was found in its original frame and stretcher.

The Calgary preview will also include paintings by Lawren Harris, Tom Thomson and Jean Paul Riopelle plus a 1926 painting by J.E.H. MacDonald entitled September Snow, as well as a 1924 oil sketch by A.Y. Jackson entitled The Ramparts, Tonquin, Jasper Park. A J.E.H. MacDonald sketch, The Lonely North, will also be on view.  

Source: Canadian Press, Heffel Fine Art

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