History & Format
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, Maureen McNeil, E. Robert Ross and Susan Outlaw among others.

Submitting Artwork
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 & Join The Fun
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.

Stay In The Auction Loop
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

The auction is where students get to know each other outside the classroom and the public get to know the school and see the work of hundreds of artists. It is an opportunity to start an art collection and to add to it over the years. Thousands of people have original art in their homes they have been lucky and astute enough to purchase at the DVSA Art Auction. 
– Marion Farnan, DVSA founder