Highlights: Canadian & International Fine Art Auction May 2025

Bringing exceptional art to the market

Our major auctions give us the opportunity to shine a spotlight on important works by noted Canadian and international artists. Our May 2025 auction of Canadian & International Fine Art was no exception, and we’re delighted to highlight a few of our and collectors’ favourites.

Jack Bush – Solo soprano #1
Price Realised: $208,150

Topping the list is perennial favourite Jack Bush.

Solo Soprano #1, “is a masterpiece in pink”, as described by Dr. Sarah Stanners, author of the recently published Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné.

“The musical titles Bush chooses for these works…carry us back to one of the twin motivations of expressive abstraction at the turn of the century or before, i.e., the hope to create art which, in the words of August Endell, ‘stirs the human soul through forms which resemble nothing known’; but which ‘works solely through freely invented forms, like music through freely invented notes.” Harold Osborne, “Arts Review: Jack Bush”; London ?, February 20, 1976.

Jack Bush’s works continue to attract collectors and Waddington’s is delighted to have offered excellent examples of the acclaimed Canadian artist’s work for over four decades.

Solo Soprano #1, 1975 © Estate of Jack Bush / CARCC Ottawa 2025

Gordon Appelbe Smith – Feb 15, 1990
Price Realised: $110,550

Feb 15, 1990 by Gordon Appelbe Smith is a marvelous example of the artist’s unwavering skill at balancing painterly dynamism and compositional control.

Smith’s earliest works were primarily landscape paintings. However, an artistic turning point in 1951 occurred when he discovered the abstract paintings of Clyfford Still and Richard Diebenkorn in California.

A master at distilling the essence of the Canadian landscape, Smith was dedicated to interpreting Canada’s west coast landscape. His work was an evolving search for balance between abstraction and his love of the land.

William Kurelek – VIEW ON FROBISHER BAY, 1968, and Inukshuks, 1968
Prices Realised: $56,870 and $39,790

It was a privilege to offer two unique works by William Kurelek which bear witness to a refreshing openness in the artist’s work.

View on Frobisher Bay and Inukshuks are part of Kurelek’s Cape Dorset series, comprised of 30 works reflecting a seven-day trip to Kinngait on Baffin Island with Terry Ryan, the general manager of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative (WBEC).

What distinguishes this series, exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1970-71, is its documentary inquisitiveness.

The Cape Dorset series was not the only body of work Kurelek made in and about the Arctic; but it is arguably the one that stands the test of time. The 1968 paintings brim with candid, authentic compassion for the north.

William perehudoff – AC-77-15, 1977 and okema #7, 1974
Prices Realised: $39,790 and $37,350

William Perehudoff had become a central figure in Canadian abstract painting by 1970, creating works that thoughtfully combine the hard-edged with the atmospheric.

Painted in the mid-1970s, AC-77-15 and Okema #7, are examples of Perehudoff at the height of his powers. By this time, Perehudoff was widely recognized as an “ambitious and innovative painter” who was responding to the work of his international contemporaries (like Jules Olitski and Larry Poons) without becoming derivative.

Both works are shaped by Pereduhoff’s deep attachment to the landscape in which he lived and worked – the vast spaces of the Canadian Prairies, with their expansive horizons and generous skies.

Larry Poons – WITH STEVENS, 88C-9, 1988
Price realised: $61,750

A highly tactile work, With Stevens, 88C-9 (1988) by Larry Poons, is one of the last paintings from the artist’s “elephant skin” series.

The painting’s surface, laden with dripped and pooled acrylic paint, exemplifies Poons’ penchant for new materials, processes, and the element of chance. The resulting painting is complex, featuring a range of textures from smooth and glossy to rough and cracked.

With Stevens, 88C-9 was shown for the first time at the Andre Emmerich Gallery in New York the year it was completed. Poons’ artwork of the 1990s would see yet another pivot – his return to the paint brush and evidence of the artist’s hand.

Francisco Zúñiga – VIRGINIA SENTADA CON ROPAJE, 1978
Price realised: $44,670

Best known for stylized figurative paintings and sculptures, Costa Rican-born, Mexican artist Francisco Zúñiga’s work often adopts qualities of pre-Columbian art.

His stone sculptures maintain a timeless quality in their simplified forms, with most of his work depicting female figures either as nudes within natural environs, or as contemporary women walking through the markets of Mexico.

The artist was deeply influenced by the German Expressionists and sculptor Auguste Rodin early in his artistic development, as evidenced in Virginia Sentada con Ropaje, 1978.

Jules Olitski – NIGHT LIGHT, 1988
Price Realised: $58,310

Night Light (1988) by American painter Jules Olitski, is an early painting from his “Mitt” series, in which his gestural approach, combined with an overlay of dark pigmented spray paint, reveals a unique sculptural effect.

The “Mitt” paintings, created between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, exemplify his decades-long exploration of innovative processes and non-traditional materials. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, the painting either glows or recedes into shadow.

A completely immersive experience, Night Light’s pulsating atmospheric fields of colour vibrate and shift before the eyes.

Opportunities to Consign to our Major Fall Auction

While one season is barely behind us, we’re gearing up for our major fall Canadian & International Fine Art auction, scheduled for November 2025.

We look forward to connecting with you and discussing selling with us for superb results.

Contact us for your complimentary auction appraisal.