TORONTO – The first 27 pieces of Hudson’s Bay Company’s 4,400-item collection will go up for sale on Nov. 19. For the man preparing for one of the most significant auctions in the country’s history, it’s also bringing up fond personal memories. “I remember my grandmother taking me to Hudson Bay and having ... the Hudson cheese hot dog with a malt,” said David Heffel, president of Heffel Fine Art Auction House. “I think that was the first restaurant as a young kid in Edmonton, four or five years old, that I ate at.” Heffel describes the initial batch of items as the cream of crop. Among his favourites is Canadian artist Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith’s “Lights of a City Street,” a depiction of a dreary and drenched Toronto, which could go for up to $150,000. But the piece getting the most attention is “Marrakech,” a portrait of the Moroccan city by former U.K. prime minister and artist Winston Churchill. In exchange for receiving an honorary title from Hudson’s Bay Company, or HBC, Heffel says Churchill was asked to gift the company one of his paintings. “He said he couldn’t because he had given them all to Lady Churchill (his wife), but later Lady Churchill was asked – and she selected this work, which was given to the Company.” Heffel says the painting could fetch up to $600,000. That doesn’t include the buyer’s premium, which is a sum paid by the purchaser to the auction house: 25 per cent of the winning bid for anything up to $25,000, plus 20 per cent above that amount, in addition to sales tax. Churchill had a fascination with the Marrakech, where spent time on a painting holiday between 1935 and 1936. Another one of his paintings of the Moroccan city, which he gifted to former U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt, was later bought by Brad Pitt, who then gave it to his then-wife Angelina Jolie. “And as a byproduct of (Pitt and Jolie’s) divorce, that work of Marrakech by Churchill recently went up for auction and sold for over $16 million.” Heffel will also have online-only auctions before the end of the year, featuring HBC items that won’t be as expensive as in the first round – such as clothing, blankets and dolls – and won’t require minimum bids. Not part of any auction? Twenty-four artifacts, believed to be of Indigenous heritage, will be returned or donated, a call Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General, recently made. The 1670 Royal Charter that gave the company an unprecedented business monopoly over Indigenous land will be part of a separate sale. Two of Canada’s wealthiest families – the Westons and the Thompsons – have both expressed interest in buying and donating it to museums. While Heffel says he feels excited about the auction, he acknowledges some of the artifacts also reflect a nuanced legacy of North America’s oldest company. “I think it’s an important conversation in the history of our country,” he said. “It’s a complicated history, and there are still many angles to be learned, and shared.” Proceeds of the auctions will allow HBC’s creditors recover some of the nearly $1 billion they are owed.
