Thomson painting sells for nearly $1.5M at auction

November 21, 2007.

A small Tom Thomson panel the artist painted a few months before his mysterious death sold for a record-breaking $1.46 million at a Toronto auction Tuesday.

Spring Thaw, a novel-sized 13 x 18-centimetre oil sketch Thomson painted in the spring of 1917, soared to a sale price of $1,463,500 (including buyer's premium) Tuesday night during Joyner Waddington's fall auction of important Canadian art.

Featured on the cover of the fall Joyner Waddington catalogue and described as a "blue chip" work by director and auctioneer Rob Cowley, Spring Thaw more than tripled its high pre-sale estimate of $400,000 Tuesday night.

Bidding for the panel rose in increments of first $50,000 and then $100,000 during a spirited bidding session before a standing-room-only crowd. It sold to an unnamed telephone bidder.

Thomson presented Spring Thaw to his sister, Minnie Thomson Henry, as a gift in 1917, and it remained in their family until the early 1970s, when it was acquired by a private collector.

Tuesday night's auction also saw a West Coast buyer score the Jean McEwen canvas Arc-En-Ciel Rouge for $97,750 — more than triple its $30,000 estimate.