Recent news that the Diane Farris Gallery and the Buschlen Mowatt Galleries are soon closing is not getting Heffel Fine Art Auction House owners Robert and David Heffel down.
Those brothers are aiming on May 17 to beat their record for the most sales at an art auction in Canadian history.
They set that $22.8 million record in May 2007 at an action at Vancouver’s Wall Centre.
“Out of the top 10 largest dollar-value auctions in Canadian history, we hold all 10,” Robert Heffel told Business in Vancouver May 11.
“Our conservative pre-sale estimate for the auction is $8 million to $12 million.”
The Heffels, however, have a habit of far exceeding their projected auction sales.
In 2007, they told Business in Vancouver they expected to gross about $12.5 million. (See: “Vancouver’s Heffel brothers break art auction record” – issue 918, May 29-June 4, 2007.)
Last May, Heffel projected that his Vancouver auction would generate $12 million to $15 million. The auction then netted $21.8 million, which is the second largest dollar-value for an art auction in Canadian history.
The Heffels hold two auctions each year: one in Vancouver in May and another in Toronto in the fall.
This year’s auction in Vancouver will be at the Vancouver Convention Centre West.
It will feature works such as an E.J. Hughes piece that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia would have bought for about $300 in the 1950s. Heffel expects it to sell for about $800,000.
The most expensive work will likely be an untitled painting by Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: glenkorstrom