Auction raises $700K for WAG

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The Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq raised more than $700,000 this week in an auction of artwork from the gallery’s permanent collection.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/11/2024 (660 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq raised more than $700,000 this week in an auction of artwork from the gallery’s permanent collection.

Hosted Wednesday in Toronto by Cowley Abbott, this was the third and final deaccession sale of its kind designed to raise money for the gallery’s Legacy Fund, used for the purchase of work by Indigenous, racialized and contemporary Canadian artists.

Several of the 19 pieces in the lot sold above pre-auction estimates, surpassing the WAG’s goal of raising $500,000 through the sale.

Among the high-earning artwork was Ivan Eyre’s surreal 1992 cityscape Canal Square, which sold for $264,000 — triple the top end of estimates.

A heated bidding war caused William Kurelek’s painting A Little Girl and Her Snowman to sell for $216,000, 14 times higher than the top-end estimate of $15,000.

Tom Thomson’s Giant’s Tomb, Georgian Bay, Summer 1914 and Kent Monkman’s Study for the Deluge also both exceeded expectations.

More than $2 million has been raised for the WAG’s Legacy Fund via the auction initiative.

Eva Wasney

Eva Wasney
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