TORONTO - A Jean Paul Lemieux classic sold for a record-breaking price at the Heffel Fine Auction House's fall sale Thursday night.
Bidding for "Nineteen Ten Remembered" reached $2 million, with the purchaser paying $2.34 million in total after adding a buyer's premium.
The auction house said the painting becomes the most expensive post-war Canadian work, surpassing an untitled Jean-Paul Riopelle that sold for $1,889,000 in 2008.
"Nineteen Ten Remembered" is a 106.7-by-146-centimetre painting depicting Lemieux as a six year old wearing a sailor suit and standing between his parents.
Two other Lemieux works also went up on the auction block Thursday night. "Les Voyageys," an oil on canvas which was signed and dated 1964, sold for $702,000 and a later work, "Le croisement" sold for $304,200.
Another record was set Thursday by Emily Carr's "War Canoe, Alert Bay."
The piece was bought for $1.22 million, breaking a record for the most valuable Canadian watercolour sold at auction.
The Heffel auction included 190 lots overall and drew $16.73 million in sales, beating the $8 million to $12 million it was expected to draw.
Two pieces by late Hamilton artist Albert Henry Robinson also went up on the auction block but only one sold.
"Baie-Saint-Paul" was expected to fetch between $50,000 to $70,000 but failed to sell, while Robinson's "St-Tite-des-Caps" sold for $26,325.
Before going on the auction block, the paintings had most recently been sitting in a barn in upstate New York until their owners realized their value.
The oil-on-panels depict Quebec village scenes of Baie-Saint-Paul and are each signed and dated 1927 and inscribed "$75.00."
The auction also included seven works by Riopelle and paintings by each of the members of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson.
