The most expensive piece of art ever sold in Canada is Paul Kane's Scene in the Northwest - Portrait which sold for $5 million at Sotheby's, Toronto in February 2002. Only 46 artists account for 75% of all sales of Canadian art at auction. The average price for a Canadian painting sold at auction has reached $5,000-even though 88% of sales are less than $5,000. Should any of these statistics be of interest, you might want to know Anthony Westbridge and Diana Bodnar have published the final S-to-Z volume in their four-volume The Collector's Dictionary of Canadian Artists at Auction (Westbridge $135, 1737 Fir St. Vancouver, V6J 5J9). It provides biographical entries for 3,100 Canadian artists, from the 18th century to the present. Westbridge has been involved in the art market as a writer and dealer for 30 years. With her Masters in Canadian art and in Library Science, Bodnar has been involved in heritage preservation and art library fields since 1975. They live in West Vancouver. 0-9685907-9-9

[BCBW 2003]