2025 Fall Art Auction
Welcome to the online sealed bid portion of the St. Thomas-Elgin Public Art Centre's Annual Fall Art Auction. The proceeds of this annual event will go towards supporting our mission, "to encourage and promote an appreciation for and support the practice of the visual arts in St. Thomas and Elgin County through a variety of exhibitions and educational programs and through the preservation of a permanent collection."
There are a few ways to participate in the Annual Fall Art Auction:
- Drop by the Art Centre to view the artworks in the auction. You have the opportunity to make a sealed bid on over 40 works of art before the event.
- Bid on the Silent Auction artworks on display too!
- Bid online or in-person on the sealed bid artworks (see below)
- Attend the event on November 7, 2025, to bid during the LIVE auction. Enjoy drinks and hors d'oeuvres while networking with other art enthusiasts and collectors.
- Tickets $20/per person Online tickets here...
The following artworks are available for online sealed bidding and will become available for the LIVE auction during the evening.
Please use the online form (at the bottom of this page) and complete all the fields to validate your bid. *Minimum bids apply and bids below the minimum will not be considered.
*** PLEASE NOTE THAT WE DO NOT OFFER SHIPPING. PICK UP ONLY***
LOT #1
Artist: Suzette Terry
Title: Untitled "Abstract", 2023
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Value: $1200
Minimum Bid: $100
24"x20"
Suzette Terry is a energetic Canadian artist, dedicated to creating original, colourful, mixed- media paintings that celebrate the beauty of the natural world. Her captivating landscapes and floral pieces are a testament to her creative vision. With a passion for teaching, she conducts engaging art classes that inspire others to express themselves through art.
LOT #2
Artist: Paul Stevenson
Title: Wild Sky "Algonquin Park", 2017
Medium: acrylic on masonite
Value: $490
Minimum Bid: $50
12"x24" image size
Paul was born in March of 1944 in St. Thomas, Ontario. He graduated from Arthur Voaden Secondary School in St. Thomas, and not long after answered the call of the north. The year was 1964, and Paul found himself at Hazen Lake. He was transfixed and transformed by the raw beauty he found there; and, thereafter, his life would never be the same. The next six years saw Paul purchase his own canoe, explore Algonquin Park for the first of many times, and in 1970 a truly Canadian artist was born.
LOT #3
Artist: Allen Smutylo
Titled: Glacial Crevices, nd
Medium: etching
Value: $1075
Minimum Bid: $100
26"x32 1/4"
Born in Toronto in 1946, Allen Smutylo is an Ontario College of Art Honours graduate and a member of the Ontario Society of Artists. For the past 40 years, his writing and his artwork (paintings, etchings and mixed media) have been based on experiences in some of the most remote places in the world. This includes sea kayaking and backpacking expeditions throughout the Canadian Arctic, the west, east and south coasts of Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, Labrador, the Amazon, Antarctica, the Himalaya, the Ganges, Baja, Rajasthan, Patagonia, West Africa, Morocco and Mongolia.
LOT #4
Artist: Antje Laidler
Title: Nocturne, 1990
Medium: monoprint
Value: $1700
Minimum Bid: $100
31"x30"
Antje Laidler is a London-based artist who was born in Germany in 1943 and immigrated to Canada in 1975. She attended H. B. Beal secondary school, where she graduated in 1977 with a special arts diploma. Antje has worked with a variety of mediums, initially a printmaker, specializing in etching and mono prints, she has expanded her practice to include charcoal and pastel drawings. Antje has exhibited widely in both solo and group shows and has her work in international collections and numerous Canadian collections, including McIntosh Gallery at Western university, the University of Toronto Art Centre, the Thomas-Elgin Art Centre, the Thames art gallery, Chatham and the Woodstock Art Gallery.
LOT #5
Artist: Ron Milton
Title: Bird, 2002
Medium: coloured pencil
Value: $2000
Minimum Bid: $200
28"x43"
Born in London, Ontario, Ron Milton is a Canadian visual artist known for his work in printmaking, drawing, and sculpture. He studied at the renowned bealart program at H. B. Beal Secondary School before becoming the first student granted advanced standing into the second year of the Bachelor of Fine Arts program at Mount Allison University, where he studied under David Silverberg and Tom Henderson. His work has been widely exhibited across Canada and is held in numerous public and private collections, including those of the McIntosh Gallery, Woodstock Art Gallery, and the Owens Art Gallery.
LOT #6
Artist: Carolyn Curtis
Title: Spohn's Flats in Winter, 1970
Medium: watercolour
Value: $550
Minimum Bid: $50
8 1/2"x10 1/2"
Born in 1903 in St. Thomas, Ontario, Carolyn Curtis showed a passion for drawing from a young age. After graduating from Alma College in 1924, she pursued Commercial Art at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, where she studied under members of the Group of Seven, including J.E.H. MacDonald, Arthur Lismer, and Frederick Varley. In the 1940s, she began working in linocuts and etching, eventually joining the Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1944. A turning point came in 1945 when she took up watercolours, a medium that became her lifelong passion.
LOT #7
Artist: David Hunsberger
Title: Unattended Orchid, 2002 11/20
Medium: serigraph
Value: $975
Minimum Bid: $100
16"x24" image size framed
David Hunsberger has been working fulltime as a serigraph printmaker since graduating from the University of Waterloo, Canada with an honours degree in Fine Arts in 1976. David continues to work at his studio in his hometown of Waterloo. His art has been exhibited extensively across Canada, and his serigraphs can be found in collections around the world.
The technique used in Hunsberger's original prints involves handpainting stencils with a liquid stencil filler into a silkscreen. Ink is then squeegeed by hand through the stencil onto paper in small editions of about 40 prints. Each individual colour requires a unique stencil and separate printing. Hunsberger's serigraphs usually have about 10 to 15 colour separations in a completed print. However, the use of overlapping transparent colours increases the number of observable colours to many more than the 10 or 15 which have actually been printed. This particular approach to printmaking creates a highly kinetic printed surface of unusual visual texture.
The imagery in Hunsberger's art is inspired by his fascination with nature. Individual wildflowers, forest floors, shorelines, rivers, rapids, forest interiors, and panoramic landscapes have all provided inspiration for him. His experiences with nature provide a theme for the printmaking process. These experiences combine with painterly and technical considerations during the process to influence his interpretation of those experiences. The result is a Hunsberger serigraph.
LOT #8 
Artist: Louise Chapman-Vincent
Title: Mrs. Shirley Vetters, Feb 1962
Medium: oil on canvas paper
Value: $400
Minimum Bid:$50
11"x14" image size framed
• originally from the London Ontario area Chapman was born c.1920
• she studied art at H.B. Beal under Mackie Kryderman with a focus on commercial art.
• she moved to St. Thomas after graduating from Beal
• she continued her painting and drawing taking local classes at the YWCA and was known as Louise Vincent after her marriage.
• several of her works are part the Art Centre’s permanent collection
• in 2021 a large donation of Louise Chapman’s work, including sketches and student work from her studies at Beal, were donated to the Art Centre for inclusion in the permanent collection and some, like this piece for auction
LOT#9 
Artist: Lila C. Knowles
Title: Untitled "Boat House", nd
Medium: oil on board
Value: $575
Minimum Bid: $50
12"x15.5" image size
She studied under F. McGillivray Knowles at his Bloor Street Studio and at the Central Technical School, Toronto. She became a teacher at Alma College and in 1931 married F. McGillivray Knowles. She continued to teach at Alma College for thirty years and to remain in the community of St. Thomas. During the summers, she made sketching trips to Colpoy's Bay, Ontario, and exhibited her work there in 1937. She showed her paintings at several venues, including The Robert Simpson Company Ltd. in Toronto (1944), Alma College (1946), and The Little Gallery in Toronto (1951), often focusing on the beauty and charm of the Canadian landscape in all seasons. Her work included rural scenes, seasonal landscapes, marine studies, and flower studies. She also painted in Cape Breton Island and later held exhibitions at her home and local venues in St. Thomas, including a 1967 show marking the anniversary of the Ontario Loan and Debenture Company.
LOT #10
Artist: Kim Harrison
Title: Northern Field, 2019
Medium: oil on panel
Value: $700
Minimum Bid: $50
18"x18"
Kim Douglas Harrison is a Beal Art graduate who went on to graduate from the fine arts program at the University of Windsor. He taught at Fanshawe College and has held classes and workshops across Southwestern Ontario. Travel, literature and music have often inspired Kim’s work.
LOT #11
Artist: Jamie Jardine/Jane Roy Collaboration
Title: Collaboration 24
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Value: $1500
Minimum Bid: $100
36"x36"
Jane Roy and Jamie Jardine are 2 local artists that meet each week over coffee to paint together. It is about the process of painting and the interplay between 2 artists. The collaborative works showcase what happens when two artists come together and produce something completely unplanned, as each artist takes separate turns to apply or remove paint, it poses a challenge to the other artist. This is usually done in a very relaxed, playful manner and provides a respite from each of their own work and studio time.
LOT #12
Artist: Aidan Urquhart
Title: Mind Journey 18, 2025
Medium: acrylic paint, collage, assemblage on wood
Value: $1450
Minimum Bid: $100
12"x12"
Aidan Urquhart was educated at the University of Western Ontario and Fanshawe College in studio and art theory. He has been exhibiting his work across Canada since the early 1990s. Fascinated by the dynamics of communication, Urquhart explores with colour, images and ideas that at first glance, might seem at odds with each other. He has completed residencies at the McIntosh Gallery-University of Western Ontario and the Banff Centre for the Arts. His work can be found in numerous public and private collections including The Winnipeg Art Gallery, Museum London, The McIntosh Gallery, St.Thomas/Elgin Art Centre, The National Archives- Ottawa, and the Canada Council Art Bank.
LOT #13
Artist: Phyllis Alter
Title: Flowers and Fish, 1992
Medium: oil on linen
Value: $3200
Minimum Bid: $200
32"x25 1/2"
framed
Phyllis Alter is a contemporary artist known for her innovative approach to mixed media and her exploration of themes related to identity, nature, and human experience. She studied at York University in Toronto, where she developed her foundational skills in art and critical theory. Pursuing her passion further, Phyllis earned her master’s degree from Winchester School of Art, where she honed her techniques and expanded her artistic vision. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries, showcasing her unique perspective and commitment to pushing the boundaries of contemporary art. Phyllis continues to inspire with her thought-provoking pieces that invite viewers to reflect on their relationship with the world around them.
LOT #14 
Artist: Thomas Blacklock
Title: Among the Wildflowers
Medium: oil on canvas
Value: $3200
Minimum Bid: $200
Thomas William Bromby Blacklock was born in 1863 in Kirkcudbright, Scotland and was the son of the English Master at the Academy there. He was trained in Edinburgh but returned to his hometown where the artist developed into a painter of fairy-tales. He painted pleasant tender fancies expressed with a daintiness of colour and design and an ingenuity and quaintness in costume and accessory. Blacklock tragically took his own life in 1903 after a long battle with depression. He was a likely candidate for early Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy, and his death was a great loss for Scottish art and culture.
LOT #15
Artist: William Ronald
Title: Sibelius Afternoon, 1992
Medium: mixed media on paper
Value: $7300
Minimum Bid: $200
22 1/2"x30"
William Ronald was the founder of Painters Eleven, the pioneer movement of Modernism in Canada. Their first exhibition, in 1954, was also the first major commercial display of abstract art in Toronto. As well, Ronald is known for his series of non-representational portraits of Canadian Prime Ministers (1977-84). He graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto in 1951 and began working as a display artist for the Robert Simpson Company department store. In 1952, he visited New York City where he studied with the American Abstract Expressionist painter, Hans Hofmann. Back in Canada, he persuaded Simpson’s to pair abstract paintings with furniture displays for a show titled Abstracts at Home, a creative way to get the public to accept non-representational art. Painters Eleven came together as a result of this show. Ronald exhibited with the group in Toronto (1953-55) and in New York (1956) (The River, 1956). Ronald eventually left Painters Eleven to live in New York where he worked on contract for the Kootz Gallery until 1964 and was quickly accepted by critics and collectors (Green Fire, 1964). Upon his return to Toronto one year later, he worked as a CBC TV and radio journalist. He continued to paint and was given a major retrospective by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario in 1975. He won the International Guggenheim Awards, Canadian Section in 1956, and was part of the National Gallery of Canada’s Second Biennial of Canadian Painting in 1957. In 1977, he was awarded a Canada Councils senior arts award to pursue his Prime Ministers project.
LOT #16
Artist: Mark Reutter
Title: Bancroft Airfield from Eagles' Nest Park, 1999
Medium: watercolour
Value: $375
Minimum Bid: $50
14 1/8"x 10 1/4"
Mark Reutter is a self taught visual artist who has painted his immediate environment in and around London, Ontario since the late 1980's, after having graduated from the Recorded Music Production Program at Fanshawe College (1984-1986).
Born in Niagara Falls in 1965, Mark was drawn to the visual arts at a young age and began showing his work in local public galleries while in high school. Since then he has shown primarily in London and surrounding areas. His early subject matter is often autobiographical, documenting his numerous solo and group canoe expeditions throughout Ontario. Many of the watercolours are executed on site when conditions warrant; others are worked later from photographs. He now mainly creates abstract pieces and lives and works in Peterborough Ontario.
LOT #17
Artist: Klaas Verboom
Title: Cabbages, 1988
Medium: pastel on paper
Value: $2500
Minimum Bid: $200
22"x30" image size framed
Verboom, who died in Sudbury in 2006, was born in London and attended Beal secondary, a student of the late Herb Ariss who was known for his impressionistic landscape paintings before he went on to the Ontario College of Art from where he graduated in 1970.
Verboom’s brushwork was a hallmark of his work, which was influenced by Ariss, and he was known for his landscapes of Southwestern Ontario.
LOT #18
Artist: William St. Thomas Smith
Title: Untitled "Waterfall", nd
Medium: watercolour on paper
Value: $795
Minimum Bid: $50
10"x14.5" image size
William "St. Thomas" Smith (1862-1947) was born in Belfast, Ireland and died at St. Thomas, Ontario. His family emigrated to Canada when he was a child and settled at Beaverton, Ontario. He received his art training at the Ontario College of Art and reputedly it was there he received the nickname of "St. Thomas" to differentiate him from another art student also named "William Smith". Later he worked in the studio of J. W. L. Forster and formed a close friendship with Curtis Williamson. Their choice of Barbizon subjects influenced his early paintings. After marrying a local artist and teacher, Smith settled permanently in St. Thomas, Ontario and by 1887, was part of the art staff at Alma College. He traveled widely in Canada, Great Britain and Europe during his long career. Most of his work was in the medium of watercolour usually choosing landscape and seascapes as subjects. St. Thomas Smith was one of the early impressionistic painters and specialized in using a watercolour wet paper technique to achieve atmospheric effects. His art was exhibited at the Ontario Society of Artists, the Royal Canadian Academy, the Toronto Industrial Exhibition and many commercial galleries. Smith’s career was highlighted by an honorary degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1940 and a retrospective by London Regional Art and Historical Museums in 1947.
LOT #19
Artist: Laura Woermke
Title: Talbot Street 2025, 2025
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Value: $1000
Minimum Bid: $100
23 1/2"x32 1/2"
Laura Woermke is a Canadian figurative and landscape artist who works primarily in oil and acrylic. Her art is known for its vibrant colors, expressive brushwork, and emotional depth.
Woermke's figurative work often features women depicted in intimate and introspective poses. Her paintings capture the nuances of human emotion and the complexities of the human experience, often conveying a sense of quiet contemplation or deep introspection.
LOT #20
Artist: Deborah Worsfold
Title: Wink, 2019
Medium: acrylic / cardboard collage
Value: $1600
Minimum Bid: $100
30"x22"
Deborah Worsfold is a Canadian visual artist working in painting, collage, drawing, and sculpture. Born in London in 1959 and raised in southwestern Ontario, she has been active as a professional artist since the early 1990s. Her work explores relationships between colour, form, and space, often moving between abstraction and representation. Worsfold studied interior decoration and later took courses in watercolour, stained glass, pottery, and drawing. She began painting in oil in 1994, later switching to acrylic, and ran two galleries in Vancouver before shifting to full-time studio work in 2000. She has exhibited widely across Canada and in the United States. Her practice expanded into collage in 2018 and sculpture in 2021, including a large-scale metal commission for 100 Kellogg Lane in 2022. She is currently based in London, Ontario, where she maintains an active studio practice and continues to exhibit and teach.
LOT #21
Artist: Elizabeth Kusinski
Title: Streetscape Green Light, 2024
Medium: oil on canvas
Value: $1500
Minimum Bid: $100
Elizabeth Kusinski is an accomplished oil painter known for her exquisite artwork. She explores a diverse range of subjects, from captivating florals to landscapes. Her talent extends to capturing the essence of the human form, skillfully creating figurative paintings that evoke emotions and tell stories.
Elizabeth works out of her studio in the village of Port Stanley, Ontario.
LOT #22
Artist: Ron Milton
Title: Come In, Water's Fine, 2020
Medium: watercolour
Value: $2500
Minimum Bid: $200
10"x34" image size
Born in London, Ontario, Ron recalls drawing as a child on paper that his father brought home from work. Ron studied printmaking and photography under Bert Kloezeman and Vivian Sturdee in the Specials Program of Bealart, H. B. Beal Secondary School in London.
He was the first student to be given advanced standing into the Bachelor of Fine Arts second year at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick where he focused on printmaking, sculpture and drawing under David Silverberg and Tom Henderson.
His work has been exhibited in various locations across Ontario and the East Coast of Canada.
LOT #23
Artist: Clark McDougall
Title: Untitled "Piano, Drayton", 1950
Medium: oil on card
Value: $1000
Minimum Bid: $100
20"x12" image size framed
Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, the son of Mr. & Mrs. Alex McDougall, he followed his own self teaching plan from the age of twelve. He attended the St. Thomas Collegiate and the Voaden Vocational School. During the war, he was held back from entering the armed forces on medical grounds. He worked in the war industry outside St. Thomas and in his spare time sketched in the country. He took some lessons in oil painting from Mrs. MacGillivray Knowles. In Toronto, where he later did war work, he met Manly MacDonald and received valuable criticism from him. When he was ready to exhibit, most of his work had been done in water colours and one gallery turned him away because water colours were not as popular as oils. But at the Mellors Gallery his work was received with enthusiasm and his first one-man show took place there in January of 1944. It was an overwhelming success. Subsequently, he held other one-man shows in Toronto and also in New York City (1945, 1947); London Art Museum (1954); 20-20 Gallery, London, Ont. (1968) and a retrospective show at the Art Gallery of St. Thomas and Elgin, St. Thomas, Ontario. At the latter gallery, his work was shown for the period from 1939 to 1972 and was described by the St. Thomas Times-Journal as follows, “The bulk of McDougall’s art is concerned with rural landscapes and scenes, although he has done some cityscapes and portraits…ranges from traditional to almost photographic realism to abstract…For while his methods and styles may have changed over the years, one thing has remained refreshingly and obviously static – the artist’s love and zest for his vocation and the outdoors he has chosen for his area of concentration…His innovative technique with black enamel and oils, and his use of vivid Fauve colors are the qualities which typify his work (now)….Gradually, he moved towards a technique which has come to characterize his work – the bold, dramatic black outlines which serve as grid or understructure, webbing a painting together and emphasizing its discrete parts with much the same effect as the metal in a stained-glass window.”
LOT #24
Artist: A.Y. Jackson
Title: Sleighing, Quebec Village, nd
Medium: serigraph
Value: $3400
Minimum Bid: $200
11 3/8"x8 1/2"
A.Y. Jackson (1882–1974) was a Canadian painter and a founding member of the iconic Group of Seven, known for his dedication to capturing the rugged beauty of the Canadian landscape through broad brushstrokes and vivid colors. After early training in Europe, he joined Lawren Harris in Toronto, where he met the other artists who would form the Group of Seven, with whom he exhibited from 1920. Jackson was also a decorated war artist during World War I and later taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts, leaving a profound legacy on Canadian art.
LOT #25
Artist: John MacGregor
Title: Untitled "Still Life", 1993
Medium: mixed media on paper
Value: $1300
Minimum Bid: $100
16 1/4"x13"
John MacGregor (1944–2019) was a Canadian artist and educator known for his paintings, prints, and sculptures that explored everyday objects and the concept of time. Born in England and raised in Ontario, he began exhibiting in the 1960s and was represented by the Isaacs Gallery for nearly two decades.
MacGregor’s work evolved from figurative pieces to bold abstractions, and later returned to figuration with a focus on time, often using distorted images of clocks and common objects. He also produced large-scale sculptures in paper pulp and wood. Alongside his art practice, he taught at several institutions in Toronto and published The Discovery of the Art of the Insane in 1989. His work is held in major public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
HOW TO BID!
Once you select the artwork on interest, use the following form to place your bid. PLEASE complete all fields to ensure your bid is successfully submitted and all necessary information is provided accurately.
Enter your bid amount, which must be at least the starting bid or higher.
Once the online auction is closed on November 5, 2025, the highest bid will begin the live auction starting bid on November 7.
Review your bid carefully.
Click submit to finalize your offer.
You will receive a confirmation email acknowledging your bid submission.
Winning bids will be notified after November 8, 2025
*All artwork is sold as presented*