END OF AN ERA?

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"Country Coffee Shop"

H.G. Glyde, "Country Coffee Shop" sold for $16,000 at the auction of EnCana’s corporate art collection. Images courtesy Hodgins Art Auctions Ltd.

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"Ice Floes, Broughton Island"

Doris McCarthy, "Ice Floes, Broughton Island," went for $19,500.

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"Country Coffee Shop"

H.G. Glyde, "Country Coffee Shop" sold for $16,000 at the auction of EnCana’s corporate art collection. Images courtesy Hodgins Art Auctions Ltd.

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END OF AN ERA?

EnCana auction raises funds for health, along with troubling questions 
about the future of corporate art collecting.

By Patricia Robertson

No bargains were to be had on the third Sunday in March when EnCana Corp. auctioned selected pieces from its extensive art holdings.

The event was held at Hodgins Art Auctions, located in a low-key industrial park just off Macleod Trail in Calgary, but the luxury cars lining the driveway indicated this was no used car auction — these were art collectors on a mission. More than 500 bidders and about 200 onlookers filled the room hoping for a deal on some unique Canadian art. However, after the first lot auctioned for retail prices many of the bargain-hunting hopefuls exited, leaving elbow room for the serious collectors.

A number of paintings sold for record amounts — Alan Collier’s Evening Light from Bob Russell’s Farm fetched $10,000, A.C. Leighton’s Wolverine Plateau sold for $16,500, Nicholas de Grandmaison’s Indian Portrait went for $26,000, Doris McCarthy’s Ice Floes, Broughton Island auctioned at $19,500 and H.G. Glyde’s Country Coffee Shop went for $16,000. In addition, Group of Seven artist Franklin Carmichael’s ink and pencil drawing Fraser Icefield, Jasper Park, sold for $15,500 and Franz Johnson’s The Ojibway Canoe sold for $34,000. An important Riopelle from the 1950s sold at $85,000. Total take for the day was almost $600,000, with proceeds going to The Integrative Health Institute — the non-profit passion of EnCana CEO Gwyn Morgan’s wife Patricia Trottier.

In monetary terms the auction was a great success, but it has some tongues wagging about the shift away from corporate art collecting to de-accessioning. Was the EnCana auction a boon for artists and collectors, or a troubling sign of the end of an era for corporate art collecting?

Art collector and seller Daniel Lindley at Collector’s Gallery in Calgary wonders why a portion of the proceeds of the EnCana auction didn’t go to support the cultural sector.

“Some of these pieces are of historical value and should be in permanent collections. I see this EnCana sell-off as part of a significant trend,” says Lindley. “In the current economic climate CEO’s are saying ‘this is not our core business,’ which is in direct contradiction with the recent study by Richard Florida about the value of culture.”

Some observers point to a sale of company-owned  artworks to employees by Gulf Canada as an example of how not to de-accession corporate art collections. Some of the employees resold their acquisitions privately at a profit, and one print even ended up at Liquidation World.

Excellent examples of responsible de-accessioning include PetroCanada’s donations to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Nickle Arts Museum, The Glenbow Museum and the City of Calgary’s Civic Art Collection, says Lindley, who also points out that EnCana hired a professional auction house and conducted its auction openly.

“The trend is real, especially when you consider just how many companies have parted with their collections either publicly or discreetly over the past five years,” says Lindley.

EnCana, PetroCanada, Gulf, Shell, and AMOCO have all sold or donated portions of their art collections in recent years.

Calgary artist Audrey Mabee’s colourful work, There’s a Birthday in Town, commanded $2,400 and she was thrilled. “This is the first time my work has been auctioned. That kind of work would typically sell at the gallery for $2,000. I got the price I wanted for the piece when I originally sold it, so I’m pleased to see it go up in value.”

Art consultant Doug Maclean shared Mabee’s delight and expressed no concern about de-accessioning. He thinks the results of the EnCana sale were exceptional. “It’s great that some people were able to acquire works that will not be available again for some time. It is great to see some works up into the value bracket where they should be. It was good to see the support for contemporary works in the sale,” he says.

Vancouver-based Harrison Galleries owner Chris Harrison says corporate art collecting has been in decline in Vancouver since the eighties, and attributes most of today’s collecting “to the whims of the CEO, although now we are seeing more acquisitions with interior designers involved in the decision. They are buying art to enhance the image of the company, to create a consistent brand — not gathering a specific collection. Corporate collecting is static here now,” says Harrison.

Although the sell-off of some of EnCana’s art holdings may be a sign that the company is “not in the business of art,” there is no decline in private collecting, says EnCana CFO John Watson, who purchased a piece for his own collection.

Peter Savage, retired manager of exploration at PanCanadian Petroleum, spent time shopping at local and foreign art galleries when he was on the art committee at PanCanadian, and some of his acquisitions were in the EnCana auction. Savage says that corporate collecting is cyclical, and it depends on who is in charge of the company.  

“Corporate art collecting goes in fits and starts,” he says. “Everyone agrees in principle to the support of culture until it comes to the point where they have to commit themselves.”

Patricia Robertson is a Calgary-based freelance journalist and member of the Single Onion Poetry Collective. Her work appears in Elle Magazine and the Toronto Star.