Art Collector Kenneth Thomson With the recent death of Kenneth Thomson, people are talking about how it could impact the Canadian art market.
Kenneth Roy Thomson was Canada's richest man and a very active art collector. The former chairman of Thomson Corp. apparently died of a heart attack in his office on Monday the 12th.
He was an important benefactor of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Canada and one of North America's biggest collectors of art. He collected works from the "Group of Seven" painters, Canadian artists, and important European works. One of his most notable recent purchases was "The Massacre of the Innocents" by Peter Paul Rubens, which he purchased at a Sotheby's auction in 2002 for $77 million.
With Thomson gone, will art market stay bullish?
""My gut reaction is that it could have a serious impact at the very high end of the market, which in itself might also impact the lower end of the market. If the pieces that people were expecting to go for $1.5-million or $2-million now start going for $500,000 or $600,000, what does that do to the pieces going for $50,000 to $100,000?" Westbridge said. "If nobody is going to replace him, then I think prices might well step back a little bit." Globe and Mail
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