{"id":277887,"date":"2025-11-12T06:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277887\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T06:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:01:09","slug":"27-works-from-the-hudsons-bays-art-collection-to-be-auctioned-off-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277887\/","title":{"rendered":"27 works from the Hudson\u2019s Bay\u2019s art collection to be auctioned off in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heffel Fine Art Auction House, in Toronto\u2019s Yorkville neighbourhood, will have some busy days ahead as it readies to accept telephone, online, and live bids on 27 pieces from The Hudson\u2019s Bay Company\u2019s extensive art collection.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, it showed off some of the marquee pieces from the historic company\u2019s 4,400-item collection that are set to be sold.<\/p>\n

Previews of those fine art works have been held in cities across the country, with Toronto\u2019s starting today.<\/p>\n

\"\"Robert Heffel, Heffell Fine Art Auction House Robert Heffel, the vice-president of Heffel Fine Art Auction House, discusses one of the Hudson’s Bay art collection pieces set to be auctioned off on Nov. 19. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hudson\u2019s Bay commissioned well-known Canadian artist to paint historical scenes for their calendar and they would keep the original calendar painting. And so, these are these are some of the Canadian artists that they chose in the calendar paintings,\u201d Robert Heffel, the company\u2019s vice-president, told CTV News Toronto.<\/p>\n

His brother David Heffel, who serves as the auction\u2019s house\u2019s president, called the collection \u201cfabulous.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt documents the history of Canada, the development of Hudson\u2019s Bay. \u2026 It\u2019s a walk through Canadian art history and a walk through Canadian history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s like going to a beautiful gallery, only it\u2019s all very edited and curated and it\u2019s absolutely stunning,\u201d said Mary Lou, who came out on Tuesday to check out the pieces.<\/p>\n

\"\"“Lights of a City Street,\u201d Hudson’s Bay art auction “Lights of a City Street,\u201d a picture of Toronto in the 1890s by Canadian artist Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith, is set to be auctioned off on Nov. 19. <\/p>\n

Among the favourites being auctioned off is a piece titled, Lights of a City Street,\u201d a picture of Toronto in the 1890s by Canadian artist Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artist has put himself in to the painting. This is the artist,\u201d Robert Heffel said while discussing the piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the newspaper sellers. This is the artist\u2019s son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Art lover Christopher Varley says he\u2019s old enough to remember the \u201cbig Bell-Smith\u201d piece, sharing that he saw it often when he visited Arcadia Court on the eighth floor of the former Simpson Tower at Bay and Queen streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery everyone in my age saw the painting, so that\u2019s the one I\u2019m really excited about seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"‘Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque’ Sir Winston Churchill A photo of oil on canvas painting by Sir Winston Churchill painted in Jan. 1943 called ‘Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque.’ The piece, whcih is part of the Hudson’s Bay art collection, is set to be auctined off in Toronto on Nov. 19. <\/p>\n

The piece garnering the most attention, however, is one of a series former U.K Prime Minister Winston Churchill painted of Marrakesh.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave the Marrakesh painting to U.S. President (Roosevelt) that later was sold for a million dollars. But then it sold \u2026 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie put it up for auction in their divorce, and it sold in Canadian dollars for $16 million,\u201d Robert Heffel said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Live auction sign A live auction sign inside Heffel Fine Art Auction House. <\/p>\n

The fine art paintings will be going to the highest bidder in one week\u2019s time. <\/p>\n

Bidding is set to begin at 3 p.m. on Nov. 19 at Heffel\u2019s Dedicated Auction Ballroom at 13 Hazelton Ave.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how a modern day of fine art auction works. It\u2019s the merger between the traditional to the innovative. And this is the technology that pilots Heffel Auction,\u201d David Heffel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have our pen and our gavel in our left and we\u2019ll be looking for bids in the audience and on our devices here. It\u2019s a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"David Heffel, Heffel Fine Art Auction House David Heffel is the president of Heffel Fine Art Auction House. <\/p>\n

Proceeds from the ongoing auction will help HBC\u2019s creditors recover some of the nearly $1 billion they\u2019re owed.<\/p>\n

With files from CTV News Toronto\u2019s Janice Golding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heffel Fine Art Auction House, in Toronto\u2019s Yorkville neighbourhood, will have some busy days ahead as it readies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[712,76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-277887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}