Art auctioned from WAG-Qaumajuq to make way for new pieces representing Winnipeg

The interior of the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq is seen on Nov. 28, 2024. (Danton Unger/CTV News Winnipeg)

Visitors to the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq may soon see some brand new art hanging on its walls.

“We want our collections to represent the people that live in our city,” said Stephen Borys, the gallery’s director and CEO. “If you look at our collection over the last 100 years, does it fully represent who lives in Winnipeg? No.”

That’s why the gallery wants to beef up its collections with more works of First Nation, Metis, and Inuit artists, along with contemporary artists.

“The goal is here to be able to have just more latitude to acquire works that celebrate what Canada is all about, who lives here, who we serve as an art museum,” Borys said.

To get that done, the gallery has dipped into its permanent collection of around 30,000 works of art, selecting 35 that went up for auction over the past two years. Borys said these include pieces by Andy Warhol and the Group of Seven, among others.

“It's always hard to narrow down because we love the collection,” Borys said. “We felt justified that we could do with one or two less and put those funds towards new, emerging artists that otherwise wouldn't be able to acquire their works.”

Among those pieces was Ivan Eyre’s Canal Square. The piece sold in the most recent auction Wednesday night in Toronto for $264,000—triple what was estimated.

This most recent auction, held by Cowley Abbott, raised more than $700,000 for the gallery, which included a donation of Cowley Abbott’s selling commission.

“We feel that part of our responsibility in this industry is also to be supporting culture and supporting our colleagues and public institutions,” said Rob Cowley, president of the company.

Cowley said most of the pieces sold at auction are going to private collectors across Canada, the U.S., and Europe.

Borys told CTV News this was the third of three auctions, which combined, raised around $2.2 million. The money is being placed in an endowment fund held by The Winnipeg Foundation, the income from which will be used exclusively to purchase new art every year.