Lawren Harris painting sells for $3M
TORONTO — A painting by Group of Seven founding member Lawren Harris sold for just over $3 million Wednesday, in line with presale expectations.
The 1925 oil canvas Mountains East of Maligne Lake had a presale estimate of $2.5 million to $3.5 million, according to the Heffel Fine Art Auction House, and sold for $3,001,250.
The painting was one of eight paintings by Harris among more than 100 that fetched a total of $15 million.
Other Harris paintings sold include Morin Island, Eclipse Sound, North Baffin Island, Arctic Painting XXXVI, which sold well above the presale estimate at $1.2 million, and Cathedral Mountain from Yoho Valley, Mountain Sketch LXXXVI, which sold for $931,250.
Harris paintings have smashed expectations at recent auctions and Heffel has now sold 336 of his works for more than $90 million.
Last November, the 1926 oil canvas Mountain Forms by the Brantford, Ont.-born painter went for over $11.2 million, more than double the previous record set in 2002 for the most expensive Canadian work ever sold.
Harris’s work received an international boost when American actor-comedian Steve Martin cocurated an exhibit of his paintings, which debuted in 2015 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles before heading to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Art Gallery of Ontario last year.