This auction is subject to Waddington’s Conditions of Sale. Photography & design by Waddington’s. All rights reserved.
front cover
Lot 316
Lawren Stewart Harris Houses in Winter, ca. 1920
front inside cover
Lot 324
Alexander Calder Red Serpent, 1965 (detail)
Lot 328
William Hodd McElcheran
Thoughtful Businessman, 1995
opposite Lot 314
Walter Joseph Phillips River Crossing, ca. 1940 (detail)
back inside cover
Lot 311
Louis-Philippe Hébert Algonquins, 1916
Lot 357
Kim Dorland Fist Fight #6, 2006 (detail)
back cover
Lot 308
Sir Edward John Poynter
Sketch of Light 1, The Embarkation of Edward The III at Dover, 1873 (detail)
Celebrating 175 Years
Some of the most meaningful memories we hold dear are about the many clients we have come to know and consider to be part of the Waddington’s family.
The collections that our auctions were based on, the collections that have been built from our auctions, and those that return full circle to be entrusted to us once again. The relationships passed down through families and friends. We remember and celebrate you.
As 2025 marks our 175th anniversary, we are so very delighted to share another season of major auctions.
Thank you for the memories.
Duncan McLean President, Waddington's
Lot 301
Alexander Young Jackson Wakefield, Quebec (detail)
ALEXANDER YOUNG (A.Y.) JACKSON, OSA, RCA (1882-1974), CANADIAN WAKEFIELD, QUEBEC oil on panel
signed lower left; titled to gallery label with inventory number “NJG 1580” verso 8.5 x 10.5 in — 21.6 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Galerie Claude Lafitte, Montreal, QC
Private Collection, Toronto, ON Waddington’s Auctioneers, Toronto, 17 Sep 2020, lot 60
Private Collection, Ontario
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
302
FRANK HANS (FRANZ) JOHNSTON (1888-1949), CANADIAN
MORNING ON THE PASS, CA. 1927
watercolour and gouache on paper laid on paperboard signed lower left; titled to exhibition label and inscribed verso
19.75 x 24 in — 50.2 x 61 cm
PROVENANCE:
Sotheby’s, Toronto, 17 May 1989, lot 276 Roberts Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED: Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, ON, 27 Aug - 10 Sep 1927, no. 499.
LITERATURE:
Catalogue of British, Belgian, French and Canadian Paintings, British and Canadian Sculpture. International Graphic and Applied Art and Salon of Photography (exh. cat.) (Toronto: Canadian National Exhibition, 1927), no. 499, unpaged.
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
303
ALEXANDER YOUNG (A.Y.) JACKSON, OSA, RCA (1882-1974), CANADIAN SPLIT ROCK ISLAND, 1952 oil on panel signed lower right; titled, dated “August 1962”, and inscribed “Mary Hamilton” verso 13.5 x 10.5 in — 34.3 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of S.B. and Mary Hamilton, Hamilton, ON Private Collection, Ontario
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
304
ALEXANDER YOUNG (A.Y.) JACKSON, OSA, RCA (1882-1974), CANADIAN WATERTON PARK, 1954 oil on panel
signed lower right; titled, dated “May 1954”, and inscribed “S.B. Hamilton” “Small Canvas N.D. Young” verso 13.5 x 10.5 in — 34.3 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of N.D. Young, Ontario
Collection of S.B. Hamilton, Hamilton, ON Private Collection, Ontario
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
305
EMILY CARR (KLEE WYCK) (1871-1945), CANADIAN
RAVEN FORM BOWL
painted ceramic signature incised “Klee Wyck” to underside, signed additionally: “ᕈ”; probably made from Dallas Cut clay, Victoria, BC
2.5 x 2.5 x 1.5 in — 6.4 x 6.4 x 3.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
A Prominent Vancouver Collection, British Columbia
$3,000—5,000
306
EMILY CARR (KLEE WYCK) (1871-1945), CANADIAN
BENT CORNER FORM BOWL
painted ceramic signature incised “Klee Wyck” to underside, signed additionally: “ᕈ”; probably made from Dallas Cut clay, Victoria, BC
2.25 x 2.75 x 2.5 in — 5.7 x 7 x 6.4 cm
PROVENANCE:
A Prominent Vancouver Collection, British Columbia
$3,000—5,000
VIEW LOT VIEW LOT
307
FRANK HANS (FRANZ) JOHNSTON, OSA, RCA (1888-1949), CANADIAN AUTUMN CONTRASTS oil on board
signed lower left; titled to artist’s label verso 16 x 20 in — 40.6 x 50.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
SIR EDWARD JOHN POYNTER
We would like to thank Alan Brooks for his assistance with cataloguing this work.
The stained glass windows situated in the historic Maison Dieu in Dover, England, represent the pinnacle of Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite craftsmanship. An integral part of the community since 1203, Maison Dieu served many purposes throughout its eight centuries of existence, from its original intention to accommodate pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, to military store, council chambers, town hall, and now a fullyrestored attraction open to the public.
The highly detailed windows that highlight the major historical moments in Dover’s history were commissioned upon the death of Maison Dieu’s thenowner, William Kingsford, the pioneering historian who penned the first colonial history of Canada.
Waddington’s is honoured to offer two of the original life-size sketches depicting The Embarkation of Edward III at Dover, 1359, created by Sir Edward Poynter, in our major fall Fine Art auction.Alan Brooks, expert on Victorian stained glass, speaks in greater detail of the significance of the windows and their sketches in an essay which we are pleased to include in full on our website.
Please click here to read the full essay.
SIR EDWARD JOHN POYNTER, PRA, RWS (1826-1919), BRITISH SKETCH OF LIGHT 1, THE EMBARKATION OF EDWARD THE III AT DOVER, 1873
graphite and chalk on buff paper annotations in pencil to left margin 120 x 27 in — 304.8 x 68.6 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Ontario
$100,000—200,000
309
SIR EDWARD JOHN POYNTER, PRA, RWS (1826-1919), BRITISH SKETCH OF LIGHT 4, THE EMBARKATION OF EDWARD THE III AT DOVER, 1873 graphite and chalk on buff paper annotations in pencil to margins 57 x 30 in — 144.8 x 76.2 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Ontario
$60,000—80,000
VIEW LOT
VIEW LOT
310
ALBERTO PASINI (1826-1899), ITALIAN BEFORE THE MOSQUE oil on canvas signed lower left
16.9 x 13.6 in — 43 x 34.5 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Toronto, ON $30,000—50,000
VIEW LOT
t
LOUIS-PHILIPPE HÉBERT
Hébert’s interest in Indigenous subjects dated to his earliest childhood, when the young artist found himself captivated by dramatic tales of life in the wilderness. In his autobiography, he recalls stories told to him by Jacques Boutin, a former employee of the trading companies, as well as books including The Jesuit Relations, and James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans (1826).1
Between 1886 and 1894, Hébert was commissioned to make ten bronze sculptures for the Parliament Building in Quebec City, whose facade was meant to be a pantheon of historic Quebecers. Perhaps the best known of these is La famille d’Abénaquis (Halte dans la forêt) / The Abenaki Family (Halt in the Forest), intended to pay homage to the first inhabitants of this country.
Algonquins, 1916, was commissioned by Patrick Martin Wickham, an insurance executive and mayor of St. Lambert, who became close friends with Hébert. Wickham later asked Hébert to produce smaller versions of select sculptures from the National Assembly Building’s commission. Hébert agreed to cast six small bronzes of Pêcheur à la Nigogue and The Algonquins. This piece is one of the original six made for the Wickham collection and has remained in the Wickham family until now.
In order to perfect his bronze work technique, Hébert made several trips to Paris. In his studio there, he began working on the large clay model for The Abenaki Family, which is the basis for reduced-scale work seen here, Algonquins. Algonquins was submitted to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, where it won a bronze medal in August 1889, a first for a Canadian artist.2 He also exhibited the sculpture at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1890. Other works from the edition are held in the permanent collections of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec.
1 Daniel Drouin, Louis-Philippe Hébert, Louis-Philippe Hébert (Quebec: Musée du Québec et Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, 2001), 246
2 Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, Accessed October 15, 2025.
LOUIS-PHILIPPE HÉBERT, RCA (1850-1917), CANADIAN ALGONQUINS, 1916
patinated bronze signature and date incised, titled, with foundry mark “R. Hohwiller, Paris”, stamped to base; cast ca. 1920-25
24 x 26 x 8 in — 61 x 66 x 20.3 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of Patrick Martin Wickham, Quebec, commissioned in 1916 Private Collection, Ontario, by descent from the above
LITERATURE:
Daniel Drouin, Louis-Philippe Hébert Louis-Philippe Hébert (Quebec: Musée du Québec et Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, 2001), repro. 26, 249, 256.
$80,000—120,000
VIEW LOT
312
ALBERT HENRY ROBINSON, RCA (1881-1956), CANADIAN
UNTITLED (CABIN), CA. 1925 oil on panel signed lower right
11.5 x 13 in — 26.7 x 31.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Dominion Gallery, Montreal, QC
Private Collection, Ontario, acquired from the above in 1953
Acquired by descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario, in 2008
$12,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
J.E.H. MACDONALD
J.E.H. MacDonald’s eloquent and sensitive approach to art transcends the man of the woods caricature sometimes given to members of the Group of Seven. The three pastoral scenes on offer span 1910 to around 1925, a period prior to MacDonald’s friendship with Lawren S. Harris to the moment of the Group’s greatest effect and most notable successes. Together, the scenes illuminate moments in MacDonald’s career.
Thornhill Fields (ca. 1925), reflects a near transcendental pleasure of painting in its economy and focus. These three oil sketches by J.E.H. MacDonald summarize his artistic trajectory and painterly essence. From a finely rendered and detailed scene of a corner of a farm under a heavy horizon to a pastoral landscape under an expanding sky on a late summer day, MacDonald’s connection with nature was always finely honed and personal.
We thank Gregory Humeniuk, art historian, consultant and curator, for this essay.
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY (J.E.H.) MACDONALD, OSA, RCA (1873-1932), CANADIAN THORNHILL FIELDS, CA. 1925 oil on board signed lower right; signed, titled, and dated verso; also titled to label verso 8.5 x 10.5 in — 21.6 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of A.C. Kenny, Toronto, ON The Art Emporium, Vancouver, BC Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
314
WALTER JOSEPH PHILLIPS, RCA (1884-1963), CANADIAN RIVER CROSSING, CA. 1940
watercolour and graphite on heavy wove paper laid on paperboard signed lower right
20 x 20 in — 50.8 x 50.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of A.E. MacAuley, Winnipeg, MB
Private Collection, Manitoba
By descent to the present Private Collection, Ontario
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
315
ALFRED JOSEPH (A.J.) CASSON, OSA, PRCA (1898-1992), CANADIAN MINE TRAILINGS, 1973
watercolour and graphite on wove paper signed lower right; dated “/73” in blue ink lower right, likely by another hand, with artist’s pencilled colour notations throughout 11.5 x 15 in — 29.2 x 38.1 cm
PROVENANCE:
Joyner, Toronto, 24 May 1996, lot 54
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
t
LAWREN STEWART HARRIS
This work will be included in the forthcoming Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project being compiled by Alec Blair. This project is an initiative to assemble a working catalogue of the works of Harris to create a publicly accessible database, providing opportunities for exploration and discovery of Harris’ diverse and varied career.
Houses in Winter is an atmospheric and sensitive painting, evoking the cold quiet of winter in Toronto. Capturing the muted stillness and tranquility of dusk, it is a fine example of Harris’ practice of sketching outdoors, translating his observations of the environment directly onto a wooden panel. Likely painted around 1920 in the rapidly expanded neighbourhoods of either Earlscourt or Lambton in western Toronto, this sketch comes from Harris’ broad catalogue of urban scenes, a subject of fascination for the artist in the years around the formation of the Group of Seven. This enthusiasm for Toronto itself as a subject set him somewhat apart from his fellow members, but is completely in line with his broader vision for creating a body of work that Canadians could identify with and relate directly to.
In a description of his early urban subjects, Harris commented in 1926 that they were “the natural expression of a love for homely subjects with their roots firmly fixed in the everyday life of all Canadians.” 1 Sketches of urban subjects, like those that depicted northern lakes and forests, were an avenue he saw to expand the country’s interest and identity in art. Quoted in his friend F.B. Housser’s book, A Canadian Art Movement, Harris wrote that one of the ways of interesting oneself in art was “…the way of life. This way demands an interest in what is being done to-day in our midst; the furthering of all original expression in one’s own community. It requires a perspective that relates near and distant happenings and brings all findings to bear fruit here and now […] It sees that life is creative, and that people only live when they create, and that all other activities should be a means to creation.”2 In another piece, written in 1913 under a pseudonym, Harris describes the artist’s purpose in depicting commonplace city scenes as such: “Through his pictures we, whose specialities are of a more practical sort, are led to see the inward beauty of the subject.”3 Please click here to read the full essay.
We thank Alec Blair for this essay. Blair is the director of the Lawren S. Harris Inventory Project, working with the estate of the artist to create a catalogue of the artist’s works.
1 Lawren Harris quoted in Fred Housser, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1926, 36.
2 Lawren Harris quoted in Fred Housser, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada Limited, 1926, 42.
LAWREN STEWART HARRIS (1885-1970), CANADIAN HOUSES IN WINTER, CA. 1920 oil on panel
signed lower left; signed and titled verso; titled to artist and gallery labels verso 10.5 x 13.5 in — 26.7 x 34.3 cm
PROVENANCE:
Dominion Gallery, Montreal, QC Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$150,000—250,000
317
ALEXANDER YOUNG (A.Y.) JACKSON, OSA, RCA (1882-1974), CANADIAN OCTOBER, LAKE SUPERIOR, CA. 1923 oil on panel signed lower right; initialled, titled, and dated verso; titled and dated to gallery label verso 8.5 x 10.5 in — 21.6 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal, QC Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$18,000—22,000
VIEW LOT
318
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY (J.E.H.) MACDONALD, OSA, RCA (1873-1932), CANADIAN HAULING WOOD AT HARDY’S FARM, OAKWOOD, ON, 1910 oil on board signed with initials and dated “10” lower right; titled verso 5 x 7 in — 12.7 x 17.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of Thoreau MacDonald, son of the artist, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
319
JAMES EDWARD HERVEY (J.E.H.) MACDONALD, RCA (1873-1932), CANADIAN THE HILLY FIELD, 1913 oil on board signed with initials and dated “13” lower right; titled and dated to gallery label verso 7 x 9 in — 17.8 x 22.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Canadian Fine Arts, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
320
FREDERICK GRANT BANTING (1891-1941), CANADIAN OUTSKIRTS OF MADRID, SPAIN, 1933 oil on board
signed, titled, and dated in red pencil, with artist stamp verso; certified and dated “28 March 1970” by Henrietta Banting, wife of the artist, to stamp verso
8.5 x 10.5 in — 21.6 x 26.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Sotheby’s, Toronto, 25 Feb 2002, lot 16
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
NOTE: This work was executed in Spain in November following Banting’s attendance at an International Cancer Congress in Madrid. After the convention, he travelled and sketched in Europe.
$12,000—18,000
VIEW LOT
321
RANDOLPH HEWTON (1888-1960), CANADIAN
UNTITLED (WINTER LANDSCAPE) oil on canvas
33 x 48 in — 83.8 x 121.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of Hubert and Edna Campbell, Ontario
Private Collection, Ontario, acquired by descent
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
322
MAURICE GALBRAITH CULLEN, RCA (1866-1934), CANADIAN THE STREAM IN BEAUPRÉ, P.Q., 1910 oil on canvas
signed lower right; titled, dated, and inscribed “authenticated by Robert Pilot, 1960” to stretcher verso; titled to gallery label with inventory no. 1083 verso
12 x 15 in — 30.5 x 38.1 cm
PROVENANCE:
Watson Art Galleries, Montreal, QC
Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, QC
Private Collection, Calgary, AB
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
323
GORDON APPELBE SMITH (1919-2020), CANADIAN RAIN FOREST, 1987
acrylic on canvas signed lower right; signed, dated “August 87”, and titled to stretcher verso 50 x 40 in — 127 x 101.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, BC Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
ALEXANDER CALDER
“For me, the two essential, fundamental colours are black and white. On one side, I put red, and on the other, blue. Close to blue, a little yellow and orange. Not very much. Other colours don’t interest me.” 1 - Alexander Calder
It was not until 1953, during a yearlong stay in Aix-en-Provence, France, that Calder began working on a two-dimensional practice: gouache.1 His production of gouaches is massive. The artist worked for decades on this medium, side by side with his production of sculptures. In his book on Calder, Michael Gibson analyses them as follows:
“The gouaches, too, are painted, with a few exceptions, in the restricted range of colours that Calder had chosen for himself after his meeting with Mondrian. These works, like the rest of his output, display the same acute sense of simplification of form. [...] They show a certain affinity with popular forms of language, thought, parade or dance, full of wit and verve. [...] The gouaches, like the drawings and mobiles, are sometimes geometric exercises, sometimes schematizations with a touch of humour [...]. There are suns and moons in keeping with popular conventions (Soleil noir, lune blanche, 1968), casual circus scenes and comically geometric faces (Aix. 1953), as well as puddles of colour that Calder would let drip by tilting the sheet [...]. Others, finally, are variations on circles, spirals, prized shapes, erratic blocks and rainbows.” 2
Red Serpent, 1965, acquired by this Private collection from the Laing Gallery in Toronto during Calder’s exhibition, 12 Calder Gouaches, in October 1965, is a prime example of Calder’s gouaches. Working on a large sheet of wove paper, Calder uses a minimalist colour palette: black ink pools on white paper divided by a red serpentine form above a few yellow and orange suns. This impressive work conveys a strong and joyful presence made by one of the most distinctive artists of his time. The art conservator JeanLipman said of these gouaches that “the best of them, joyfully conceived, solidly structured and brilliantly coloured, make up a body of work that is among the most remarkable of our time.” 3
Please click here to read the full essay.
1 Huxley-Parlour Gallery. Alexander Calder: Works on Paper. Exhibition. London: Huxley-Parlour Gallery. Accessed November 7, 2025. https://huxleyparlour.com/exhibitions/alexander-calder-works-on-paper/ 2 Ibid.
3 Michael Gibson, Calder, (Paris: Universe Books, 1988), 48.
324
ALEXANDER CALDER (1898-1976), AMERICAN RED SERPENT, 1965 gouache and ink on paper signed and dated “65” lower right 42 x 29 in — 106.7 x 73.7 cm
PROVENANCE: Laing Galleries, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
12 Calder Gouaches, Laing Galleries, Toronto, ON, 25 Sep - 16 Oct 1965.
NOTE:
We would like to thank the Calder Foundation for noting this work in their Application for Registration.
$80,000—100,000
325
PAUL-ÉMILE BORDUAS (1905-1960), CANADIAN
ENCRE #6, 1954
Chinese ink and watercolour on buff paper signed and dated “54” lower right; titled to label verso 18.5 x 15.25 in — 40.6 x 33 cm
PROVENANCE: Roberts Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
326
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER (1880-1938), GERMAN
STEHENDE FRAU AM OFEN (STEHENDE), CA. 1910
graphite on paper
titled and dated in pencil by an unknown hand verso; estate stamp inscribed “B Dre/Bi 79” in ink verso
13 x 13.8 in — 33 x 35 cm
PROVENANCE:
Studio of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Berlin/Dresden, Germany
Collection of Erna Kirchner, Davos, Switzerland
Kirchner Estate, Basel, Switzerland
Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett Roman Norbert Ketterer, Stuttgart, Germany
Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin, Germany
Galerie Wolfgang Ketterer, Munich, Germany
Lempertz, Cologne, Germany
Serge Sabarsky Gallery, New York, NY
The Morris Gallery, Toronto, ON
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$10,000—15,000
Note:
This work is listed in the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archives, Wichtrach/Bern.
VIEW LOT
327
MICHAEL SNOW (B. 1929), CANADIAN THREE WALKING WOMEN, 1963 graphite rubbing on wove paper signed and dated “’63” lower right 13 x 13 in — 33 x 33 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
t
WILLIAM McELCHERAN
Thoughtful Businessman is part of William McElcheran’s larger body of work, using the businessman as a universal symbol. Author David P. Silcox notes that McElcheran creates an “everyman”, with figures that are symbolic rather than individual. Initially amusing, upon reflection they come to evoke deeper sentiments, carrying a sense of irony, as well as a compassionate, understanding view of life.1
In his interview with Dr. Inge Kindeman, conducted in Italy in 1990, the artist elaborates on the figure of the businessman:
Dr. Inge Kindeman: What role does classical art play in your work?
W.M.: It’s not that I’m trying to copy classical art so much as I’m trying to reflect upon aspirations that haven’t quite been killed in people. People still have a desire for beauty, and I use the classical mode to demonstrate what people are missing in their lives. Take my businessman when he reaches for his ideal of beauty: when he thinks how powerful he wants to be he thinks of himself as a Greek god, he doesn’t think of himself as Jesus.
Dr. Inge Kindeman: How did you come to the image of the businessman?
W.M.: There was this period in my work where I became very deeply involved with Catholicism. During that period, I was using skinny figures to express the thin equals of spirituals - later, the fat businessmen as a corporal expression for loneliness. When I was working with religious sculptures, I was always trying to relate my treatment of the subject matter, particularly the treatment of the passion, to contemporary life. There I had this figure of an Everyman with a blank look on his face expressing a sort of impotence. I was trying to relate this idea of the Passion of Christ to contemporary life: how responsible are we for the sufferings of Christ? I was showing in my Everyman, who developed into my businessman, this grey character, who was witnessing it and even trying to figure out what was happening. But I lost my Catholic faith, and with it a part of my art which was connected with this symbolizing of the spiritual. And so what I’m really doing now is trying to find a classical image. My businessman replaces the classical hero.
Please click here to keep reading.
1 Gerhard Finckh and David P. Silcox, William Mac, Hôcherl-Verlag, Munich, 1991, p. 44.
328
WILLIAM
HODD MCELCHERAN,
RCA (1927-1999), CANADIAN THOUGHTFUL BUSINESSMAN, 1995 patinated bronze signed with initials, dated “95”, and numbered “8/9” to base, incised 32 x 11 x 11 in — 81.3 x 27.9 x 27.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Alberta
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
SOREL ETROG
No Canadian sculptor understood and created their own version of mid-twentieth century modernism like Sorel Etrog did in the 1960s. The three bronze sculptures of this period offered in this auction embody his achievement, and their enduring appeal attests to their quality and rigour.
Following his earliest mature works, the thoroughly abstract Painted Constructions (1952–1960), Etrog’s work regularly drew inspiration from the visible world and from anthropomorphized figures. Starting in the late 1950s and through the process of abstracting from the human figure, Etrog choreographed the viewer’s gaze.
In Duet (1960-1962) Etrog refined a form he used regularly from 1959 to 1963. Concentrating a standing figure to simple graphic marks of a kernel, knot and filament for its head, torso and legs, Etrog developed a personal syntax. These spare and serene works are unmistakably Etrog’s and in their sophistication they acknowledge and echo the austerity and grace of the bronze sculptures of Alberto Giacometti and Aristide Maillol.
This sculpture was conceived as Etrog’s career was taking off. It represents the essence of Etrog’s sculpture during this definitive moment in his career.
We thank Gregory Humeniuk, art historian, consultant and curator, for this essay.
329
SOREL ETROG, RCA (1933-2014), CANADIAN DUET, 1960-1962
patinated bronze signed and numbered 3/7 to base, stamped; cast in 1962
49 x 9 x 9 in — 114.3 x 22.9 x 22.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Galerie Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON, acquired from the above in 1963
EXHIBITED:
Sorel Etrog, 19 Mar - 10 Apr 1963, Gallery Moos Limited, Toronto, ON, listed under no. 12.
LITERATURE:
Pierre Restany, Sorel Etrog (Munich, London, New York: Prestel Verlag, 2001), repro. 67.
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
330
GENE DAVIS (1920-1985), AMERICAN WASH DAY, 1970
acrylic on canvas
signed, titled, and dated verso; also titled and dated to gallery label verso 24 x 30 in — 61 x 76.2 cm
PROVENANCE:
Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$12,000—18,000
VIEW LOT
331
JACOB EL HANANI (B. 1947), ISRAELI TEXTURES, 1972 ink on canvas signed and dated “72” lower right 15 x 15 in — 38 x 38 cm
PROVENANCE: Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON $16,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
332
CHARLES PACHTER (B. 1942), CANADIAN BLUE BARN REFLECTED, 2020
acrylic on canvas signed and dated “20” lower right 16 x 20 in — 40.6 x 50.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Montreal, QC, acquired directly from the artist in Feb 2021
$10,000—15,000
NOTE:
Accompanied by a copy of the Certificate of Authenticity from the artist, dated 16 Feb 2022 (purchaser name redacted).
VIEW LOT
333
MAUD LEWIS (1903-1970), CANADIAN
WINTER OXEN, CA. 1965 oil on pulpboard signed lower right
11.75 x 13.75 in — 29.8 x 34.9 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
334
MAUD LEWIS (1903-1970), CANADIAN SLEIGHS AND COVERED BRIDGE, WINTER, CA. 1960 oil on pulpboard signed lower right
12.75 x 13.75 in — 32.4 x 34.9 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
335
KATHLEEN MORRIS (1893-1986), CANADIAN HORSES
oil on panel signed lower right; titled to artist and gallery labels verso 12 x 14 in — 30.5 x 35.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Arthur Leggett Fine Arts Limited, Toronto, ON Sotheby’s, Toronto, 24 Nov 2008, lot 200 Private Collection, Ontario
$12,000—18,000
VIEW LOT
336
PRUDENCE HEWARD (1896-1947), CANADIAN GRAIN ELEVATOR, PRESCOTT oil on panel titled to gallery labels verso 9 x 12 in — 22.9 x 30.5 cm
PROVENANCE: Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, Montreal, QC Canadian Fine Arts Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Ontario
$12,000—18,000
VIEW LOT
337
DORIS JEAN MCCARTHY, OSA, RCA (1910-2010), CANADIAN BEACH AT TLELL [SIC], 1994 oil on canvas
signed lower right; inventory no. 940101 verso; also titled to gallery label verso 48 x 66 in — 121.9 x 167.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON Loch Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Ontario
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
338
EDWARD SEAGO (1910-1974), BRITISH SHEPHERDS HUT ON THE PANORAMICA, COSTA SMERALDA oil on board signed lower right; titled verso 20 x 29.5 in — 50.8 x 74.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of Joyce Seagram, Toronto, ON
LITERATURE: James W. Reid, Edward Seago: The Landscape Art, London, 1991, p. 205.
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
339
EDWARD SEAGO (1910-1974), BRITISH PLACE JEAN MARAIS, MONTMARTRE, PARIS oil on board
signed lower left; inscribed “A STREET CORNER - MONTMARTRE” in pencil verso 18 x 24 in — 45.7 x 61 cm
PROVENANCE:
Thomas Campbell Gallery, Toronto, ON Kevin Jones Collection, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON Waddington’s Auctioneers, Toronto, 25 Nov 2021, lot 34 Private Collection, Ontario
$18,000—22,000
VIEW LOT
EDWARD SEAGO (1910-1974), BRITISH PLACE HAMLIN [SIC], HONFLEUR, 1951 oil on canvas
signed and dated lower left; titled to stretcher verso 18 x 23 in — 45.7 x 58.4 cm
PROVENANCE:
V.W. Armstrong, Esq. Collection, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Peterborough, ON Waddington’s Auctioneers, Toronto, 25 Nov 2021, lot 33 Private Collection, Ontario
LITERATURE:
Horace Shipp, Edward Seago: Painter in the English Tradition, Collins, London 1952, pl. 84.
$14,000—18,000
VIEW LOT
341
JOHN GEOFFREY CARUTHERS LITTLE, RCA (1928-2024), CANADIAN LES ARBRES DE RUE BERRI, MTL oil on canvas
signed lower right; signed, titled, and dated “’73” to stretcher 22 x 28.5 in — 55.9 x 72.4 cm
PROVENANCE:
Galerie d’Art Cosner, Montreal, QC
Cowley Abbott, Toronto, 24 Sep 2020, lot 66
Private Collection, Ontario
$10,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
342
EDWARD JOHN (E.J.) HUGHES, RCA (1913-2007), CANADIAN CHURCH AT SANDWICK, NEAR COURTENAY, 1948 graphite on paper signed and dated lower right; signed, titled, and dated verso 10.5 x 14.75 in — 26.7 x 37.5 cm
PROVENANCE:
The Art Emporium, Vancouver, BC
Private Collection, Toronto, ON, acquired from the above in 1976
Private Collection, Toronto, ON, by descent
EXHIBITED:
E.J. Hughes 1931-198: A Retrospective Exhibition, Surrey Art Gallery, 18 Nov-11 Dec 1983; Art Gallery of Great Victoria, 15 Mar-29 Apr, 1984; Edmonton Art Gallery, 18 May-2 Jul, 1984; Glenbow Museum, 20 Jul-2 Sep 1984; National Gallery of Canada, 21 Sep-4 Nov, 1984; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 23 Nov-6 Jan 1985.
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
343
EDOUARD CORTÈS
(1882-1969),
FRENCH
PARIS, PLACE DE LA MADELEINE, TERMINUS DE L’OMNIBUS MADELEINE-BASTILLE, CA. 1960 oil on canvas signed lower left
13.1 x 22 in — 33.2 x 55.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Sotheby’s, New York, 23 May 1989, lot 188
Private Collection, Ontario
$16,000—18,000
NOTE:
This lot is accompanied by a certificate issued by the Comité Edouard Cortès, under N°EC-CEC-2025/29. It will be included in the supplement to the catalogue raisonné of Edouard Cortès’s work, which is currently being prepared.
VIEW LOT
344
LÉON BELLEFLEUR (1910-2007), CANADIAN TOTEMS À L’ÉVENTAIL, 1969
acrylic on canvas
signed and dated “69” lower right; signed, titled, and dated verso 39.5 x 32 in — 100.3 x 81.3 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
t
JOCK MACDONALD
Jock Macdonald’s gripping late painting, Young Summer (1959), is making its auction debut after being held in a family collection for over sixty years. Young Summer has been regularly cited in the major literature on the artist for over four decades and was included in his largest retrospective.
While Macdonald’s commitment to abstraction began decades before he painted Young Summer, it coalesced in the middle 1940s and matured until his death in 1960 at the age of 63. When he arrived in Toronto from Vancouver in 1947 to teach at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) Macdonald was confident and experienced, possessing the rare dual aptitudes of exceptional art-making and exceptional teaching coupled with a ceaseless artistic curiosity.
Young Summer was painted a few years after Harold Town introduced Macdonald to the medium Lucite 44 that allowed Macdonald to blend oil paints to a consistency akin to watercolour and that dried almost as quickly. This change meant Macdonald could paint large canvases with the effect of the bold abstracting watercolours he had been painting for more than ten years.
Macdonald’s deliberate description of completely abstract forms in Young Summer evokes Mark Rothko’s painting of the late 1940s in its technique, while the images themselves evoke the slides of drops of acid Macdonald projected for his students to conjure non-objective imagery.1 Macdonald scholar Joyce Zemans includes Young Summer with Fugitive Articulation, and Memory of Music, as one of the “magnificent yellow canvases” Macdonald painted in the autumn of 1959 and the only one of the trio not in a public collection.2 Beholding a painting of this pedigree, fresh to market, and not publicly exhibited in more than a generation, is an extraordinary occasion.
We thank Gregory Humeniuk, art historian, consultant and curator for this essay.
1 Joyce Zemans, Jock Macdonald (Canadian Artists Series) (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1985), 26.
2 Joyce Zemans, Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape – A Retrospective Exhibition / Le Paysage Interieur – Retrospective (exh. cat.) (Toronto, ON: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1981), 228.
345
JAMES WILLIAMSON GALLOWAY (JOCK) MACDONALD, OSA, RCA (1897-1960), CANADIAN
YOUNG SUMMER, 1959 oil and Lucite 44 on canvas titled and dated to exhibition label verso; inscribed “1960 exhibition” verso 42.25 x 47.5 in — 107.3 x 120.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Dorothy Cameron Gallery Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON, acquired in 1964 By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
88th Annual Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists, Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, ON, 26 March-24 April 1960, no. 48.
Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape Retrospective, Art Gallery of Ontario, 11 Apr - 7 Jun 1981; Art Gallery of Windsor, 20 Jun - 16 Aug 1981.
LITERATURE:
Catalogue of the 88th Annual Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists, Toronto, ON, Art Gallery of Toronto, 1960, unpaged, repro. b/w. Jock Macdonald: The Inner Landscape – A Retrospective Exhibition (exh. cat.). Catalogue by Joyce Zemans. Toronto, ON: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1981
Monk, Philip, Art: Defining the abstract, Maclean’s (27 April 1981), 57.
Zemans, Joyce, Jock Macdonald. (Canadian Artists Series). Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1985: 26, pl. 53, 81 repro. b/w. Zemans, Joyce, Jock Macdonald: Life & Work, Toronto, ON: Art Canada Institute, 2016: 73 repro. col., 74.
$30,000—40,000
VIEW LOT
346
JOHN GRAHAM COUGHTRY (1931-1999), CANADIAN
TWO FIGURES, FROM SERIES II, 1962 oil on canvas
signed and dated “62” lower right; titled and dated to gallery labels verso 60 x 48 in — 152.4 x 121.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
The Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, ON The Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
347
DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974), IRISH FAREWELL TO JOHN oil on board signed lower right; titled verso 18 x 24 in — 46 x 61 cm
PROVENANCE: The Waddington Galleries, Montreal, QC Private Collection, Montreal, QC
NOTE:
We would like to thank Karen Reihill for her assistance in cataloguing this work.
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
348
DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974), IRISH LANDSCAPE WITH FIGURES oil on board signed lower left; titled verso 18 x 24 in — 46 x 61 cm
PROVENANCE: The Waddington Galleries, Montreal, QC Private Collection, Montreal, QC
NOTE:
We would like to thank Karen Reihill for her assistance in cataloguing this work.
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
WALTER YARWOOD (1917-1996), CANADIAN UNTITLED (TOWER), CA. 1965
aluminum cast sculpture on granite pedestal
72 x 10 x 8 in — 182.9 x 25.4 x 20.3 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON, acquired ca. 1965
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
NOTE:
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Walter Yarwood, son of the artist, handling the Yarwood Estate.
$6,000—8,000
VIEW LOT
350
MARC-AURÈLE FORTIN, RCA (1888-1970), CANADIAN
FAÇADE DE L’ABBAYE SAINT-PIERRE DE MOISSAC, CA. 1934 oil on canvas in hemp, laid on paperboard with inventory no. 55082 verso; partially titled to label verso 20 x 15 in — 50.8 x 38.1 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Ontario
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
DAVID DIAO
David Diao is a Chinese-American artist born in 1943 in Chengdu, China. After a brief stay in Hong Kong, he settled in New York City with his father in 1955. During the early 1960s, Diao worked for galleries and institutions such as the Guggenheim and the Kootz Gallery while delving into the New York School of abstract painting.
After creating virtually monochrome canvases between 1966-68, Diao turned his attention to the relationship between the surface and its support structure. Emphasising the materiality of his work by highlighting the presence of the stretcher frame or bricks that would be placed beneath the canvas. Per Emily Wasserman, writing in 1969, “in the paintings which he has made since the summer of 1967 Diao has been occupied with surface and its light-reflecting properties which are played up through loose, though somewhat systematised all-over gesturing and an extremely subdued, modulated range of neutral colours.” 1
Diao’s first show of abstract minimalism, which received critical acclaim, was held in 1969 at the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York.
Waddington’s is honoured to offer one of Diao’s esteemed 1969 works on canvas, Boxcar. In the artist’s own words, Diao describes the process and inspiration behind the creation of this monumental work in a November 2024 interview with art historian and curator, Ihor Holubizky.
“Boxcar is one of the paintings that has vertical lines formed by the canvas touching and rubbing against 3 vertical stretcher braces bevelled to an edge as I painted on the face of the canvas.
The stretched canvas is on blocks leaning against the wall. I would load a sponge with paint and move laterally across the surface, first in one direction, then the opposite, until the entire surface is covered with paint.
Often there would be several colours working wet into wet. In this case, there was just the brown paint. Each pass of the sponge also caused the nap of the cloth to go in that direction, then the return has the nap reverse direction.
Then I took a tube of yellow paint and squeezed it directly on the canvas in horizontal streaks, reinforcing the edge between the brown strokes. The yellow streaks reminded me of what it might look like from inside the dark interior of a train boxcar with sunlight outside coming through the slats, hence the title. This is one of 2 paintings that I squeezed paint directly from the tube. The other is Scarface, 1969, in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.” 2
1 Emily Wasserman. “Allan Hacklin, David Diao, Donald Kaufman.” Artforum, Summer 1969. Accessed October 11, 2023.
2 Ihor Holubizky and David Diao, “David Diao, Boxcar, 1969”, November 2024.
DAVID DIAO (B. 1943), CHINESE/AMERICAN BOXCAR, 1969
acrylic on canvas signed, titled, and dated verso; also titled and dated to gallery labels verso 72 x 96 in — 182.9 x 243.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, NY
Dunkelman Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
New Work: New York, The American Federation of the Arts, New York, 1 Sep 1971 - 1 Sep 1972.
$25,000—35,000
VIEW LOT
352
JULES OLITSKI (1922-2007), AMERICAN PARADISE FEAST, 1984
water-based acrylic on canvas signed, titled and dated “’84” and “84-02-7” verso; also titled to label verso 50 x 55 in — 127 x 139.7 cm
PROVENANCE: Gallery One, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON $25,000—35,000
VIEW LOT
353
STANLEY BOXER (1926-2000), AMERICAN INCLEMENTFEATHERINGWHYOFNIGHTS, DI-79, 1979 oil on canvas signed, dated “8/79”, and inscribed “DI-79” verso; titled to stretcher verso; also titled to gallery label verso 60 x 60 in — 152.4 x 152.4 cm
PROVENANCE: André Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY Gallery One, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
354
SOREL ETROG, RCA (1933-2014), CANADIAN VENETIAN, CA. 1965
patinated bronze signed and numbered 3/7 to base, stamped 24.2 x 25.5 x 9 in — 61.5 x 64.8 x 22.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Los Angeles, CA Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
November 7 - 20, 2025
t
KIM DORLAND
Speaking with Waddington’s, Kim Dorland notes: “you can’t have beauty without unease or else it’s just beauty, and beauty on its own is boring.” Born and raised in Alberta, Dorland’s work captures ordinary moments, late-night fights, forest edges, and, more recently, a vision of current and future climate hardships. Dorland’s paintings balance figuration and abstraction, often glowing with fluorescent colour and thick impasto.
Two early paintings, both from 2006, Fist Fight #6 and Ozzy, are offered in our 2025 Major Fall auction. Both works draw directly from Dorland’s teenage years in Red Deer, Alberta, and mark a key period in which he began to define his artistic voice.
Fist Fight #6 channels the chaotic spirit of small-town adolescence. “We would meet in a random field somewhere and drink and smoke and fight,” Dorland recalls. “This is based on the most unhinged fight I ever witnessed where the people just seemed to morph into a mass of limbs. I’m the figure smoking in the foreground watching everything unfold.” The painting’s heavy texture and fluorescent tones capture both the physicality and frenzy of the scene, a vivid meditation on violence. Dorland describes this Red Deer period as pivotal, when he “finally knew what [he] wanted to explore” and began to understand what painting could do both narratively and visually.
If Fist Fight #6 embodies chaos, Ozzy reflects a quieter, more surreal vision. Inspired by an alleyway Dorland walked through daily as a teenager, the work represents the strange coexistence of suburbia and wilderness. “Red Deer was the kind of place where you would be walking through a neighbourhood and come face to face with a deer or moose,” he says. “This was a reflection of this.” Through his dense and intensly coloured brushwork, Dorland captures that moment where the familiar meets the wild, an ordinary suburban landscape charged with mystery and unease.
The two works are milestones in his career. Fist Fight #6 and Ozzy reveal Dorland’s ability to turn personal moments into art, to both guide his imagery and connect with audiences: “I think that any great work of art has something mysterious and visually impactful regardless of content. The artwork should be able to tell you everything about itself through the act of viewing. No one cares about the write up beside the work to help the viewer “get” the artist’s intent. If it isn’t available through the act of viewing, it isn’t available, period.”
355
KIM DORLAND (B. 1974), CANADIAN FIST FIGHT #6, 2006
acrylic and oil on canvas signed, titled, and dated verso 70 x 58 in — 177.8 x 147.3 cm
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
356
KIM DORLAND (B. 1974), CANADIAN OZZY, 2006
oil, acrylic, and spray paint on canvas laid on board titled lower centre left; signed, titled, and dated verso
24 x 30 in — 61 x 76.2 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
t
GERSHON ISKOWITZ
The 1970s was a period of high creative productivity for Gershon Iskowitz. His work came to wide and critical attention, first through his celebrated Lowlands and Uplands series (1969 – 1972), and in the mid-1970s, the Highlands-titled and related paintings. The Uplands were featured in the 1972 Venice Biennale, when Iskowitz represented Canada in tandem with sculptor Walter Redinger.
During this decade, Iskowitz’s work was shown in public gallery solo exhibitions at Hart House/University of Toronto, the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, and the Owens Art Gallery/Art Gallery of Nova Scotia – his first solo exhibition in New York – and travelling group exhibitions across Canada, and internationally: Seven Canadian Painters, toured to eleven venues across Australia and New Zealand in 1977-78.
While the mid-1970s are considered a ‘classic’ Iskowitz period, he continued to develop his approaches and techniques for abstraction. Blue Mauve-C is a prime example of Iskowitz’s inventiveness. The convention of figure on ground is inverted in his underpainting of amorphous green, yellow, purple and pink forms. This ground is overpainted with blues to form ‘strands’ of the bolder underpaint. There is also a reversal of atmospheric perspective – typically an illusion of depth with paler and cooler colours painted in the background. Related and later paintings include Night Greens D, 1981 – featured on the dust cover of Adele Freeman’s 1982 monograph Gershon Iskowitz, Painter of Light – and Orange Yellow C, 1982. (Collection of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre)
On the rare occasions that Iskowitz spoke of his impulses and approaches, he emphasized a living experience, left open for interpretation, rather than a prescribed formal theory:
There has to be a certain kind of reality in it [and] a form of communication. My work is more like...space, and poems; and it relates to my daily living. What we do is paint; we build an image, a form. It’s not an obvious form, it’s private.1
We thank Ihor Holubizky for this essay. Holubizkyr is a cultural essayist and art historian. He received his PhD in Art History from the University of Queensland.
1 David Bolduc interview with Gershon Iskowitz, Proof Only (Toronto), January 15, 1974.
357
GERSHON ISKOWITZ, RCA (1919-1988), CANADIAN BLUE MAUVE-C, 1980 oil on canvas signed, titled, and dated verso 38 x 33 in — 96.5 x 83.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Hamilton, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
Gershon Iskowitz, Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, 17 Jan - 4 Feb 1981.
$30,000—40,000
VIEW LOT
WILLIAM KURELEK
William Kurelek, one of Canada’s most popular and idiosyncratic 20th century artists, resisted ideas of artistic exceptionalism and genius. A self-identified “picture maker,” he saw himself as a modern medieval illuminator, someone who “wasn’t so awfully conscious of art or of being an artist.”1 Kurelek’s choice of subject matter, his scratchy, illustrational style, betray indifference for the refined elegance and conventional beauty associated with artistic creation. Yet, Carpenter’s Dream is not without aesthetic concern; it reveals the picture maker’s deep reverence for the more earthy charm of manual craftsmanship.
Raised in agrarian communities in Alberta and Manitoba, Kurelek came by his aesthetic values honestly. In his youth he struggled under the practical, farm-forged expectations of his Ukrainian-Canadian parents. Yet, his mature work—his paintings as well as the renowned picture frames he crafted for his own work (including Carpenter’s Dream) and that of other artists at Toronto’s Isaacs Gallery—demonstrate a consistent unfussy skillfulness, dexterous handiwork, and artisanry. These qualities first appeared in the shallow spaced, closely observed, and meticulously rendered trompe l’oeil arrangements of coins, keys, and stamps Kurelek painted while living in England in the 1950s. Through the first half of the 1970s, he rediscovered an interest in the mundane work-a-day objects of his youth on the farm, as well as the singular tools with which he made his frames.
At first glance Carpenter’s Dream appears consistent with small contemporaneous works like Frame Finisher’s Glove or The Blacking Brush (both at the National Gallery of Canada). Closer examination, however, reveals something more whimsical: small figures performing—one is actually skiing!—amid the curled shavings that lend the wood plane its mountainous proportions. While the narrative has been lost, it’s likely this painting was a gift or commission, perhaps for Stephen Klemchuk (1915-83), a Montrealbased supporter of Kurelek in the 1970s, whose name appears on verso. On one level an icon to the craftsmanship Kurelek valued, Carpenter’s Dream, on another, counts among a much smaller body of strange, playful dreamscapes—The Dream of Michael Negrich (Winnipeg Art Gallery) and The Dream of Mayor Crombie in the Glen Stewart Ravine (City of Toronto), for example—reflecting personal connections to specific people in his life.
We thank Andrew Kear, Head of Programs at Museum London, for this essay.
1 William Kurelek, quoted in Joan Murray, Kurelek’s Vision of Canada (Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1982), 71. William Kurelek, Someone With Me: The Autobiography of William Kurelek (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Center for Improvement of Undergraduate Education, 1973), 503-4.
358
WILLIAM KURELEK, OSA, RCA (1927-1977), CANADIAN CARPENTER’S DREAM, 1975
mixed media on hardboard, in artist-made frame signed with monogram and dated “75” lower right; titled to frame verso board 10 x 16 in — 25.4 x 40.6 cm; incl. frame 18 x 23.5 in — 45.7 x 59.7 cm
PROVENANCE:
Collection of Stephen Klemchuck, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$10,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
PAUL JENKINS
t
The paintings of Paul Jenkins have come to represent the spirit, vitality, and invention of post World War II American abstraction.
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri in 1923, Jenkins later moved to Youngstown, Ohio. Drawn to New York, he became a student of Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Art Students League and ultimately became associated with the Abstract Expressionists, inspired in part by the “cataclysmic challenge of Pollock and the total metaphysical consumption of Mark Tobey.” 1
Art critic Lawrence Alloway, in his essay2 on the monograph Paul Jenkins by Albert Elsen published in 1973, details the influence that German painter Wols (Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze) and American painter Morris Louis had on Jenkins during the 1950s.
While shedding an incisive light on the writer’s admiration for the artist and his tendency to romanticise the facts, Alloway highlights Clement Greenberg’s involvement with Jenkins: “In the early ‘60s Greenberg told me that he lent [Morris Louis’] painting to Jenkins in the hope of cleaning up Jenkins’ painting technique, encouraging him to take the shine out of his glazes and to let the ground show through more.”
Alloway summarizes the evolution of the painter: “First Jenkins was influenced by Wols, in 1953–54; then he was influenced by Louis, 1956–57, as the scale of his pictures got bigger and as his surface became simpler, a process that culminated in 1960 with his total conversion to acrylics.”
Also influenced by the decalcomania technique created in the late 1930s by Oscar Dominguez and used by the Surrealist movement, Jenkins would achieve a veil-like feeling in his composition: “Technical virtuosity and a picturesque imagery characterize Jenkins’ art. He works at a distance from his paintings, shielded by adroit procedures from the autographic revelations of gestural painting. There is no sign of the hand in terms of pressure or direction of stroke, so the paintings become detached and ornate images of flux.”3
Please click here to read the full essay.
1 Dr. Louis A. Zona, Director, The Butler Institute of American Art, in. www.pauljenkins.net
2 Paul Jenkins By Lawrence Alloway in. www.artforum.com
3 Ibid.
359
PAUL JENKINS (1923-2012), AMERICAN PHENOMENA FROM MISTRAL, 1967
acrylic on canvas signed lower left; signed, titled, and dated to stretcher and canvas verso; also titled and dated to gallery label verso 55 x 72 in — 139.7 x 182.9 cm
PROVENANCE: Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$40,000—60,000
360
PAUL JENKINS (1923-2012), AMERICAN PHENOMENA TO TRESPASS, 1961
watercolour on Arches paper signed lower right; signed, titled, dated, and situated at “New York” in ink verso 30.3 x 22.4 in — 77 x 57 cm
PROVENANCE:
Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
Jenkins, Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON, 17 - 30 Oct 1963.
$8,000—12,000
VIEW LOT
VIEW LOT
tKAZUO NAKAMURA
A founding member of the Toronto-based collective Painters Eleven, Kazuo Nakamura played a pivotal role in the emergence of abstraction in Canada during the 1950s. While his peers gravitated toward the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionism, Nakamura’s approach was quieter, more meditative. The group was united not by a single style but by a shared commitment to artistic freedom—a principle that allowed Nakamura to pursue his own visual language rooted in science, mathematics, and the natural world. His methodical compositions, often constructed through repetition and limited palettes, reflect a search for what he described as “a fundamental universal pattern in all art and nature.” 1
Waddington’s is pleased to offer Green Reflection, 1965, an exemplary canvas from the 1960s, a period of artistic maturation for Nakamura. Produced shortly after the dissolution of Painters Eleven, as Nakamura embarked on a solo path defined by rigorous formal investigation and quiet spiritual depth.
Green Reflection, 1965 is a quintessential example of Nakamura’s abstracted landscapes. A fractured lake lies beneath a serene treeline, rendered in a restrained palette of green and blue. The landscape is recognizable yet remote— isolated, contemplative, and seemingly suspended in silence. It evokes nature not as scenery, but as pattern, fragment, and memory.
1 Robert Fulford, “The New World of Pattern”, Mayfair Magazine (February 1956), 46.
361
KAZUO NAKAMURA, RCA (1926-2002), CANADIAN GREEN REFLECTION, 1965 oil on canvas
signed and dated “65” lower right; signed, dated, and situated at “Toronto” to stretcher verso; titled to label verso 25 x 32 in — 63.5 x 81.3 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$25,000—35,000
362
KAZUO NAKAMURA, RCA (1926-2002), CANADIAN LINE WAVES, 1962
oil and string on canvas signed and dated “62” lower right; signed, dated, and situated at “Toronto” to stretcher verso; titled to label verso 24 x 33 in — 61 x 83.8 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
EXHIBITED:
Artist Architect Collaboration, Montreal Museum of Modern Art, presented at the Toronto International Exhibition, 1965.
$20,000—30,000
VIEW LOT
VIEW LOT
363
KAZUO NAKAMURA, RCA (1926-2002), CANADIAN UNTITLED (THREE PLANTS REFLECTED), 1964 oil on canvas
signed and dated “’64” lower right; signed and dated to stretcher verso 32 x 36 in — 81.3 x 91.4 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—20,000
VIEW LOT
364
SOREL ETROG, RCA (1933-2014), CANADIAN
UNTITLED, CA. 1960
patinated bronze signed and numbered 1/7 to base, stamped 22 x 12 x 9 in — 58.4 x 30.5 x 22.9 cm
PROVENANCE:
Gallery Moos Ltd., Toronto, ON Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
ARNALDO POMODORO (1926-2025), ITALIAN
STUDIO PER SCUDI, I, 1988
patinated bronze signed and numbered 2/3 lower right, incised; there was also one artist’s proof 27.2 x 28.8 in — 69 x 73.2 cm
PROVENANCE:
Venice Design Art Gallery, Venice, Italy
Private Collection, Toronto, ON, acquired in 1991 from the above
EXHIBITED:
Arnaldo Pomodoro, Tornabuoni Art, London, February 10 - April 16, 2016, p. 132, a similar example illustrated.
Arnaldo Pomodoro, Venice Design Art Gallery, Venice, September 6 - November, 1991.
LITERATURE:
F. Gualdoni, ed., Arnaldo Pomodoro: Catalogo ragionato della scultura, Tome II, Milan, 2007, p. 680, no. 834
Padovan M., Picasso, i Celti ed altro in mostra a Venezia, in Momento-Sera, Rome, September 24, 1991, a similar example illustrated.
NOTE:
This lot is accompanied by a certificate issued by the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, and is catalogued with the archive number AP 624b and published in the Catalogue Raisonné online.
$10,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
366
GERALD FERGUSON (1937-2009), CANADIAN 3 LOBSTERS / FLOWERS, 1992 enamel and acrylic on canvas signed, titled, and dated “92” verso; titled and dated to gallery label verso 31.5 x 66 in — 80 x 167.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON Private Collection, Nova Scotia
$10,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
367
MOLLY LAMB BOBAK (1920-2014), CANADIAN VEGETARIANS OUT WALKING, 1958
oil on canvas
signed and dated “58” lower right; signed, titled, and dated to label verso; also titled to exhibition label verso 24 x 40 in — 61 x 101.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Kastel Gallery, Westmount, QC
Private Collection, Burlington, ON
EXHIBITED:
Paintings and Sculptures of the Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Portland Art Museum, 1959, no. 17.
LITERATURE:
Paintings and Sculptures of the Pacific Northwest: Oregon, Washington, British Columbia (exh. cat.), Portland Art Museum, 1959, unpaged, no. 17.
$10,000—15,000
VIEW LOT
368
ISIDOR KAUFMANN (1853-1921), AUSTRIAN/HUNGARIAN
PORTRAIT OF JULIETTE KAUFMANN (THE ARTIST’S WIFE), CA. 1900 oil on panel signed lower left; Hungarian export stamp verso 10.2 x 8.3 in — 26 x 21 cm
PROVENANCE:
Private Collection, Budapest, Hungary By descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto, ON
$15,000—25,000
VIEW LOT
MARC-AURÈLE DE FOY SUZOR-COTÉ (1869-1937), CANADIAN
LA COMPAGNE DU VIEUX PIONNIER CANADIEN, 1912 patinated bronze signed, dated, and inscribed “Canada Copyrighted U.S.” to base, incised; titled to front of base 18 x 9.5 x 16 in — 45.7 x 24.1 x 40.6 cm
PROVENANCE:
Pinney’s Auctions, Ville Mont-Royal, QC, 6 Jun, 1989, lot 177 Private Collection, Burlington, ON
LITERATURE:
Pierre L’Allier, Suzor-Coté, L’oeuvre sculpté, Quebec, 1991, p. 48-49
