Lawren Harris mountainscape featured in Steve Martin exhibit set for auction

Fresh off a hit art exhibition spearheadedby Steve Martin, alarge-scale mountain scene by Group of Seven founder Lawren Harris is headed for the auction block.

Mountain Forms, a commanding1926 canvas by the Canadian art legend, will be part of the annual fall sale byHeffel Fine Art Auction House this November.

It is expected to sell for between $3 million and $5 million. If it surpasses the upper end of the estimate, Mountain Forms could supplant Paul Kane's Scene in the Northwest as the most expensive painting ever to sell at a Canadian auction.

Harris's vibrantRockies scene isabout 1.5 metres tall and 1.8 metres wide. It depicts Mount Ishbel, which is inAlberta'sSawbackRange in Banff National Park east of Johnston Canyon.

The work holds special significance for auction house headsRobert and David Heffel, who followed their father, Kenneth, into the business.

"An artwork of this importance comes up once in a lifetime, at most,"David Heffel, the company's president, said in a statement.

"The pinnacle of our father's career was selling this painting in 1980, and Robert and I are honoured to offer it once again."

Mountain Formswill be sold atHeffel'sfall auction in Toronto on Nov. 23.

Loaned for Martin exhibit

The paintinghails from thecollection of Imperial Oil, which has reduced its art holdings in recent years. As part of astreamlining of its corporate collection, the company has donated worksto Canadian galleries and given proceeds from some art auctions to the United Way and its partners.

Mountain Forms was most recently on loan toThe Idea of North: The Paintings of Lawren Harris, a headline-grabbing exhibition co-curated by award-winning performer,writer, comedian and art loverMartin.

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Pulling together some of Harris's best known works from top museums, galleriesand private collections across Canada, the showdebuted at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles before travelling to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Harris has beenone of the country's most coveted artists on the auction scene, with most of his canvases in museum collections and typically smaller oil sketches coming up for sale.

However, the high-profile Idea of North exhibit helped stoke further interest in Harris. His painting Mountain and Glacier set a record price for his work when it sold for $4.6 million by Heffel inNovember2015.