(This is not the painting that sold)
A Tom Thomson oil sketch of Ontario's northern wilderness sold for $934,000 at auction in Toronto on Monday, well above the last record price for a Thomson painting.
Art dealer David Loch of Winnipeg won a brisk bidding war for the painting, Burnt Area with Ragged Rocks, at the Sotheby's and Ritchies auction of Canadian art.
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2 comments:
David Loch. A damn nice guy. His family is also damn nice. And he's a shrewd, tough-as-nails businessman.
Kenneth Thomson, whose family he bought the painting for, was a close friend of Loch, and phoned him 2 or 3 times a day for years before he passed away this spring.
Thomson was declared the richest man in Canada by Forbes, and the 9th richest IN THE WORLD!!! Loch has basically had a blank cheque for years, working with Thomson to buy every painting that comes up on the market that he likes, no matter what the cost. (A few years back, they paid 4.2 million for a Paul Kane work).
After Thomson died, his family donated his entire collection to the AGO--they're building a three-storey wing, designed by world-famous architect ("starchitecht", if you prefer) Frank Ghery, who is from Toronto.
The End.
There was a fear that the Canadian art market would suffer because of the death of Kenneth Thompson, it seemed like he was the only one buying anything. The folks at Sotheby's assure us however that there were always secondary buyers to all of Thompsons biddings and that a new generation of art collectore will probably flourish now that he is no longer around.
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