Emily Carr Painting Sells for over $2M at Vancouver Auction

Carr's oil-on-canvas titled Wind in the Tree Tops fetched a whopping $2,164,500 at the second sessions of Vancouver-based Heffel Fine Art Auction House's spring sale on Wednesday evening. Though Carr's works on paper or panel regularly turn up at auction, her canvas paintings are rare commodities more commonly held by museums, large art galleries and private collectors.

"A painting from this period is one of the rarest treasures in Canadian art, so it is not surprising we shattered the previous Carr record by $1 million," Robert Heffel, who leads the company with his brother David, said in a statement.

Like Carr's Wind in the Tree Tops, Riopelle's Jouet dates from a sought-after period: in this case early 1953, when Riopelle — then based in Paris — made his Guggenheim Museum debut in an exhibit titled Younger European Painters at the New York venue. The show helped introduce his work to influential New York art critics, who heaped praised on the Canadian artist.