Art collectors and history enthusiasts can make a bid on several stone grotesques preserved from the former home of the Calgary Herald, which are up for auction this week.

The sculptures originally adorned the facade of the Southam building, also known as the Herald building or the Greyhound building, which sat on the 600 block of 1st Street S.W., from when it was built in 1912 until it was demolished in 1972.

A total of 380 grotesques were commissioned from Royal Doulton in London, England for the Southam building, as well as the Southam Chambers built across the street, where the Herald moved in 1932. They were designed by artist Mark Villars Marshall and are believed to be some of his final works.

Several of the sculptures were caricatures of newsroom characters, including ‘The Editor,’ ‘The Stenographer,’ ‘The Typesetter,’ and ‘The Printer’s Devil.’ Others depicted a variety of animals and masks.

Around 40 of the sculptures were destroyed during the Southam Chambers’ remodel in the mid-1960s, and the remaining 20 were donated to the Glenbow Museum.

When the Greyhound building was demolished in 1972, all of its grotesques were removed, and the majority of them were sold to the City of Calgary. In 1994, the city auctioned off 240 of them, keeping 46 for the Public Art Collection.

“Since then, they went all over the place,” said Andrea Lowe, co-owner of Levis Fine Art Auctions and Appraisal. “There were some that went to the Alberta Government Telephone building . . . the Alberta Hotel, the Telus Convention Center, Fort Calgary, U of C.”

Many of them still remain on display in those locations.

“A bunch of the other ones ended up in private collections, they ended up in corporate collections, they were destroyed, moved other locations,” Lowe said.

Gargoyles expected to sell for thousands of dollars

The 16 pieces that Levis currently has up for auction aren’t the first they’ve sold over the years.

“We’ve had one of the large gargoyles and a couple of the smaller ones in the past,” Lowe said.

The large one sold for $3,000, and she’s expecting the ones that are currently for sale will go for between $2,000 to $5,000, depending on their size and condition.

“We have sold some of the smaller ones, like the architectural details of the monkey and the fish and the crab. Those ones come up more often,” she said. “They normally sell for that mid-to-high hundreds range.”

The pieces in this week’s auction, which closes April 25, are all being sold unreserved, meaning there’s no minimum bid.

“They all start at a dollar,” Lowe said. “But the buyer has to take on the responsibility of having them moved.”

Some of the bigger sculptures are estimated to weigh between 750 and 850 pounds, which makes moving them a bit tricky. But those with an interest in Calgary’s history or Gothic architecture might find the grotesques to be well worth the trouble.

Difficulties in past attempts to preserve gargoyles

An article found in the Calgary Daily Herald on June 22, 1932, after the paper moved from the Southam building to the Southam Chambers across the street, bore the headline, “Gargoyles gloomy when newspaper friends move to handsome new home.”

“We glanced back at the familiar outlines of the old building from the editorial windows of the new. Directly across were the eight gargoyles representing various phases of newspaper work,” the article read. “At this lonely midnight hour their usual cheerful expression was missing.

“In the eyes of the ‘Editor’ there seemed to be a look of reproach; we were sure that a tear glistened on the cheek of the ‘Sub-Editor;’ the ‘Stenog’ looked unmistakably sad; the ‘Architects’ were more serious than usual, and the ‘Typesetter’ and ‘Devil’ were decidedly less jaunty.”

An October 1971 article anticipated the challenge of preserving the sculptures in the 1972 demolition, with a headline reading “AGT building puts ‘Herald Staff’ in danger.”

“Experience indicates saving the gargoyles will be difficult. When the Herald Building was remodelled in 1966-67, only 20 of 60 similar figures could be saved, despite careful attempts to preserve them,” the article warned.

Even then, the figures were deemed to be “eagerly sought-after . . . command(ing) ever-increasing prices in the antique market.”

Lowe called the auction “a great opportunity to own a piece of Calgary’s history.”

“The landscape of downtown is changing so often now, and it has changed so much,” she said. “They don’t make buildings like they used to, with this kind of detail and ornamentation. They’re really special.”