A painting by renowned B.C. artist Emily Carr that sold for $50 US at a barn sale in New York State fetched $290,000 Cdn at a Toronto auction on Wednesday night.
Heffel Fine Art Auction House sold the painting to the highest bidder.
Art dealer Allen Treibitz bought the painting, Masset, Q.C.I., a few months ago in the Hamptons but he was unfamiliar with Carr’s work and legacy. He knew, however, that there was something special about the painting.
The piece, painted in 1912, depicts a carved grizzly bear atop a memorial totem pole and bears Carr’s signature.
Carr was born in Victoria in 1871 and was closely associated with the renowned Group of Seven, which includes Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson.
The discovered piece was painted as part of Carr’s efforts to create an extensive record of the artistic heritage of First Nations communities in British Columbia. The Indigenous memorial post depicted in the painting stood in Masset, a village in the province’s Haida Gwaii archipelago.
The piece is believed to have been a gift to Carr’s friend Nell Cozier and her husband in the 1930s and has been hanging in a barn in the Hamptons since. The couple had moved to the area to work as caretakers for a large estate after originally living in Victoria.