VANCOUVER — In 1940 the Alma Mater Society at the University of British Columbia started collecting 15 cents per student to put together an art collection.
Abandoned Village, Rivers Inlet was painted in 1946-47, just after Hughes was demobilized from the Canadian Army, where he had been a war artist. The Hughes painting is on display at the Heffel Gallery, 2247 Granville at 7th through Monday. The auction will be in Toronto and will have a live audience, but will also be beamed live through the Heffel “digital showroom” on the Heffel website.
“It’s avant-garde,” said David Heffel. “Only two Canadian painters were painting in a modernist style , David Milne and Emily Carr.” The painting is of Colville’s wife Rhoda, who is nude, drying herself off in a tent at the beach. Colville is outside, peering into the distance through a pair of binoculars.