Auction underway for some of Hudson's Bay's most valuable artworks

Fate of HBC artifacts sparks questions, concerns

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In a post on her Substack, Anishinaabe journalist and author Tanya Talaga said the available works at today's auction are "remembrances of the good old days of colonial domination and oppression and the unfreedom of Indigenous peoples."

She points out that for more than 200 years, HBC "controlled most of Rupert's Land, about 8 million square kms from B.C. To Quebec to Nunavut and encompassing what are now six northern United States. Of course, First Nations peoples were living on this land — land that was stolen and claimed as if no one was around or living on it."

Talaga "bluntly" likened Rupert's Land to "a monstrous plantation for the British and for what was to become the fur-trading giant — the HBC."

Talaga added that the proceeds "should be going to the debt owed to First Nations people, whose land was stolen, families destroyed, just so European men could wear fancy hats."

First up to sell is Tracking on the Athabasca by Walter Joseph Phillips, which goes for $37,500 — a record for a Phillips oil, auctioneer David Heffel says.

The painting depicts teams of men roped together while guiding a cargo boat along the Athabasca River in Alberta.

“Here, W.J. Phillips demonstrates the sheer difficulty of the process: bent over double and trudging along the banks, the crew guide their cargo around the treacherous river rapids,” says a description of the piece on the Heffel website.

The Heffel sale room is all white with paintings lining the walls.

It’s a packed house. The room is bustling with hundreds of bidders anxious to make a successful purchase, as well as onlookers and members of the media.

Morgan's was a department store, with its first location housed in an ornate four-storey building on Ste,-Catherine and McGill streets in Montreal.

The store, founded by two Scottish brothers in the second half of the 19th century, became a chain with locations in Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa. It was bought by HBC in the 1960s and became The Bay.

The Morgan brothers were known to be innovators: "They were the first to show off merchandise in the windows of their store. Previously, shop windows had been tinted or curtained, lest rival merchants know what was on offer," the Montreal Gazette wrote in 2006.

That's exactly what Quebec painter Adrien Hébert depicted in this 1930s piece. The son of sculptor Louis-Philippe Hébert and brother of sculptor Henri Hébert, he became known for scenes of Montreal's bustling streets amid the rapid modernization of the time.

Christmas department store windows became a Montreal tradition beyond just The Bay, with Ogilvy's window drawing crowds every year in later decades.

WATCH | Heffel Fall Live Auction 2025:

Hi everyone, I’m a senior writer with the live pages team in Toronto.

The auction is just about to begin. You can watch the live stream of it on YouTube here to see what item will be first up.

If you've been to Toronto in the last eight years, then the name Berczy may look familiar to you.

That's because the city park named after architect and painter William von Moll Berczy features the city's famous, beloved dog fountain (which, for what it's worth, has a 4.8 star rating on Google Maps).

But what about the man behind the name? In addition to being a painter, Berczy is widely regarded as a co-founder of Toronto for his work clearing land, developing roads and constructing buildings in Markham.

Two of his works are in today's auction: Rear Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson and Battle of Trafalgar. Both were created between 1807 and 1808, having been commissioned for Montreal-based fur trading business the North West Company. They're considered companion paintings, commemorating the Battle of Trafalgar in Quebec during December 1805.

The pieces were hung everywhere from the dining hall at Fort William, to the HBC's northern headquarters in northwestern Manitoba, until finally arriving in Toronto in 1974. They're estimated to be worth $70,000 to $90,000 each.

More than a dozen of the paintings on auction today were commissioned for HBC's historical annual calendars, including works by W.J. Phillips, George Franklin Arbuckle and Frank Johnston, according to The Canadian Press.

The calendars were produced from 1913 to 1970 and distributed for free at its department stores and trading posts, with pieces commissioned from popular artists.

The calendar paintings are idealized scenes of Canadian history with epic depictions of pioneer expeditions of the at-times snowy or windswept landscape. Some of their characters wear the brand's multi-coloured stripes on wool jackets — similar to the blankets up for auction until Dec.

One of the buzziest paintings up for auction today is Lights of a City Street, by Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith.

Bell-Smith was born in London and later immigrated to Montreal in 1867. An accomplished artist, he was one of the founding members of the Society of Canadian Artists, taught at multiple institutions including the Ontario School of Art, and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1886. The National Gallery of Canada says he was the first Canadian to be granted a personal sitting by Queen Victoria.

Lights of a City Street is an oil painting on canvas dated 1894, depicting pedestrians on a rainy evening at the busy intersection of King and Yonge Streets in Toronto. It's notable for its precise minute details and hopeful vision of one of Canada's then-burgeoning urban centres. It's estimated to go for $100,000 to $150,000. This painting previously hung in Toronto's Arcadian Court for many years.

So, how did Marrakech land in the hands of Canada's HBC?

In 1954, Churchill was named Grand Seigneur of Hudson's Bay Company. As a gesture of appreciation, he donated the painting — first a gift to his wife Clementine.

Churchill also had family ties to the HBC through his ancestor James Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, who had served as the Company's third governor.

More about that Churchill painting: it was believed to be completed in the 1930s while he was on a painting trip through North Africa.

"Here in these spacious palm groves rising from the desert, the traveller may rest assured that he will never find the world dull," Churchill wrote in The Daily Mail on his return to London.

The luminous and warm depiction of Marrakech bathed in Moroccan sunlight marked a turning point in Churchill's development as a prolific amateur painter, where he moved away from more muted European tones.

Churchill later returned to Marrakech and produced a number of paintings depicting Morrocco. He painted the most famous of them, Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943), during the Casablanca Conference and gifted it to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was the only painting he completed during the Second World War.

It was later bought by Brad Pitt who gave it to his then-wife Angelina Jolie. Jolie sold it after their divorce for a record £8.2 million ($15 million Cdn).

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