Held each April, Dundas Valley School of Art’s Annual Art Auction is one of the Hamilton/Burlington region’s largest art auctions featuring over 1,400 original works in a range of mediums – paintings, pastels, drawings, prints, photography, sculpture, pottery, glass, fibre art, jewellery and more. This one-of-a-kind online and in-person event offers an exceptional opportunity to purchase original, high-quality and affordable pieces by art world greats and the region’s new and established artists.
Our 54th edition of the Annual Art Auction is scheduled for March 31 – April 6, 2025. The Live Auction Night is Friday, April 4.
The first DVSA art auction was held in the early 1970’s and consisted of a supper party with 6 donated pieces of art. Over its 50+ year history, the auction has grown significantly to become a multi-day, 1,000+ artwork event and the school’s main fundraiser of the year. Proceeds are split between the participating artists and the school, directly benefiting the local artistic community while funding DVSA’s mission to provide high-quality and accessible visual arts education programs.
In 2020, the event moved online to create a hybrid-experience – viewing and bidding for artwork is done online in addition to in-school previews throughout the week. This provides an exclusive opportunity to see the artwork in person (an important element of artwork purchasing).
The marquee event of the week is the Live Auction evening, featuring a variety of distinct bidding lots. Previous live auctions have included works by Renoir, Picasso, Salvador Dali and Miró along with Canadian icons such as Robert Bateman, Norval Morrisseau, Conrad Furey, Alex Colville, Frank Panabaker and Abraham Anghik Ruben. There’s also a wide selection of featured pieces by leading regional artists, which in the past has included Catherine Gibbon, Peter Fischer, Barb Sachs, Julia Veenstra, Jody Joseph, Eric Ranveau, Tom Wilson, Laurie Wonfor Nolan, Lee Munn, Maureen McNeil, E. Robert Ross and Susan Outlaw among others.
For interested artists, a call for submissions is made in January with intake beginning in February. To ensure you are notified of the call, sign up for our Email updates and/or follow our social media channels (see links below). Submitted pieces may be a full donation or you may choose to have 25% or 50% of the selling price returned to you and receive a tax receipt for the amount donated to the school. Plus, your work will receive exposure to thousands of art lovers and collectors from across the Hamilton region, Southwestern Ontario, Canada and even around the world – all who bid online and, where possible, visit the school to see the artwork in-person.
Volunteer assistance is always needed for the auction in the areas of building preparation and installation, set up/strike, event monitors and more. If you are interested in helping out and being part of our art-loving community, please complete our Volunteer form or call us at 905-628-6357 Ext 1.
Keep up to date with all the DVSA auction news, information and artwork sneak peeks by following us on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram.
Event hashtag – #dvsaauction
