Canadian art auctioneer Cowley Abbott is set to once again stage its Important Canadian and International Art sale this month as part of its Fall live auction schedule. Taking place Wednesday, November 27, 2024, in Toronto, the sale brings together an expansive range of 20th- and 21st-century art by acclaimed Canadian artists as well as international icons.
With works such as Mick Jagger (F&S II.142) by Pop artist Andy Warhol commingling with pieces like a landscape by Canadian artist Tom Thomson and early-aughts work by Glenn Ligon, the sale illustrates the incredible breadth of art history over the past century.
Below, we explore just a few highlights from among the more than 100 lots that comprise the sale.
Marcelle Ferron, Sans titre (1959)
Est. $200,000–$300,000 CAD
Marcelle Ferron, Sans titre (1959). Courtesy of Cowley Abbott
Canadian artist Marcelle Ferron (1924–2001) showed an early penchant for radicalism in her work, leaving the École des beaux-arts in Quebec without completing her studies due to dissatisfaction with the school’s approach to teaching Modern art. She was a cosigner of the Refus global (or “Total Refusal”) manifesto, which was influential in transforming the Québécois art scene. Spending a little more than a decade in Paris in the early part of her career, she ultimately returned to Quebec in the late 1960s. Paintings like the present lot are reminiscent of her efforts in stained glass (examples are on view at Montreal’s Champ-de-Mars metro station), which informed her distinctive approach to color, light, and abstraction.
Jack Bush, Arc (1969)
Est. $250,000–$350,000 CAD
Jack Bush, Arc (1969). Courtesy of Cowley Abott.
While most closely associated with movements such as Color Field or Post-painterly abstraction, Canadian artist Jack Bush (1909–1977) was also largely influenced by Pop art following his firsthand exposure to Warhol’s work in 1965. He was a key member of the Painters Eleven group, which championed the rise of abstraction in Canada in the 1950s and ’60s. His dazzling color palettes and bold compositions of the 1960s certainly evoke the zeitgeist. Bush’s accomplishments with both color and shape led critic Clement Greenberg to dub him a “supreme colorist” alongside artists from the Washington Color School.
Roy Lichtenstein, This Must be the Place (Corlett III.20) (1965)
Est. $15,000–$25,000 CAD
Roy Lichtenstein, This Must Be the Place (Corlett III.20) (1965). Courtesy of Cowley Abbott.
Seminal American Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein developed a personal style that is still recognized the world over today. The present lot dates to the height of the artist’s career and features a unique futuristic landscape devoid of figuration—but not dialogue, one of his hallmark motifs, which appears here in a comic book-style speech bubble. First published as a poster for the National Cartoonists Society, and then as a print by Leo Castelli gallery, the piece speaks to Lichtenstein’s distinctive style and imaginative world-building.
Glenn Ligon, Small Malcolm (2006)
Est. $70,000–$90,000 CAD
Glenn Ligon, Small Malcolm (2006). Courtesy of Cowley Abott.
American conceptual artist Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) is best known for his conceptual works that interrogate themes and ideas around race, identity, language, and sexuality. In his “Coloring Book” series, begun while an artist in residence at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he based his paintings on coloring-book pages of 1970s black history, inviting schoolchildren to color them in. With figures such as Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X, the reinvention of the children’s drawings alludes to the multilayered and complex nature of history.
Roberto Matta, Untitled (1990)
$30,000–$50,000 CAD
Roberto Matta, Untitled (1990). Courtesy of Cowley Abbott.
Chilean artist Roberto Matta (1911–2002) was a pivotal figure in the development of the Abstract Expressionist and Surrealist movements and remains one of Chile’s best-known artists of the past century. A world traveler, he relocated in the 1930s from his home city of Santiago to Paris, where he worked in the studio of Le Corbusier and was introduced to artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp. With the outbreak of World War II, he moved to the United States, where he associated with artists Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Arshile Gorky, to name a few. The combination of these experiences directly contributed to Matta’s own characteristic approach, which defies easy categorization, and illustrates his ability to deftly draw from various movements and styles to create something wholly unique.
Kent Monkman, Study for “The Deluge” (2018)
Est. $140,000–$180,000 CAD
Kent Monkman, Study for “The Deluge” (2018). Courtesy of Cowley Abbott.
Cree artist Kent Monkman (b. 1965), who lives and works in Toronto, maintains a practice that spans painting, film, and installation, through which he explores systems of oppression, ideologies, and the capacity to subvert Western ideals. Monkman frequently employs well-known compositions and scenes from art history and transforms them through the inclusion of Indigenous peoples and motifs, offering new insight and perspectives.
Early in his career, Monkman developed an alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, reflecting the artist’s identity as a “two-spirit” person, a figure who “fulfills a traditional ceremonial role as a member of the ‘third gender’ in many Indigenous cultures,” as the house describes it. This persona features regularly in his work, such as in Study for “The Deluge” (2018), where he is seen saving children from a deluge—a metaphor for the onslaught of European settlers.
Explore these lots and more in Cowley Abbott’s Important Canadian and International Art sale, taking place November 27, 2024.