Inuit art auction draws buyers from Europe, North America By James Purdie The Globe and Mail Friday, February 24, 1978 Buyers paid a total of $102, 000 for Inuit carvings and prints at a Toronto auction last night. The best of such art items may rise in value across the board by as much as 30 per cent when the dust clears at Waddington’s, the Queen Street East auctioneers. The auction, which opened last night and continues tonight, attracted a crowd of 700 from Canada, the United States and several European countries. The $102,000 paid last night means that that portion of the art collection is worth about $250,000. Record prices were set for stone block prints. One print by Pudlo of Cape Dorset, a profile of a muskox, brought $1,800. The print was issued in 1970 in an edition of 50 at about $200 each. It sold at auction about four years ago for $800 and again two years ago for $1,500.
The new price levels are being set by 350 registered bidders. When the results are evaluated, Canada will have its first price base for Inuit art at auction. In the sale are more than 400 prints and carvings from the collection of the late William Eccles. Mr. Eccles was an art dealer for most of his life, selling Inuit work from a small gallery in the Royal York Hotel. One piece in the auction, a stone carving of a polar bear looking at its reflection in melting ice, was sold for $7,000. Mr. Eccles bought the 6 1/4-inch-high piece 16 years ago for $125 at another Waddington’s auction. Another first for this auction is the establishment of a method for tracing old prints and carvings to their sources. Almost all of the known Canadian Arctic Inuit settlements are represented in the auction.
Purdie, James, “Inuit art auction draws buyers from Europe, North America,” The Globe and Mail, February 24, 1978.