Geoffrey Joyner celebrates 25 years in the Canadian art auction business

The Toronto Star, May 16, 1993

By Lisa Balfour Bowen

Toronto auctioneer Geoffrey Joyner's life and career reads like a one-of-a-kind Canadian success story.

Now 47, he immigrated to Canada with his English parents at the age of five. After graduating with honors from the University Of Toronto, he was soon recruited from a junior position at the Royal Ontario Museum to work for Sotheby's, the prestigious, wor1d-reknowned, British-based auction house.

"In 1968, when Sotheby's opened a Canadian operation here in Toronto they needed someone to act as a trainee. That included hauling stuff around, hanging shows and so on," recalls Joyner who, within a year, ran the firm on his own and, by 1982, was named President of Sotheby's (Canada) Inc.

On his way up, he not only established a permanent profile for Sotheby's in Canada but also made a solid name for himself as the country's best known Canadian art auctioneer.

"The Canadian auction market has been, to a considerable extent, (Joyner's) own creation," reported well-known author Douglas Fetherling in a 1984 article which rings true as Joyner celebrates his 25th anniversary in the Canadian art auction business. During the course of his unique pioneering career, Joyner has indeed played a conspicuous personal role helping Canadian art sales rise from thousands of dollars to millions. Under his hammer, several major auction records have been established and, in one spectacular 1987 sale, he racked up a record of more than $5.5 million in three hours.

That auction - of the Lawrence Porter collection - was attended by Canadian millionaire Ken Thomson, wife Marilyn and on David. All sat right up front along with Gerald Pencer, then head of Finance of Trustco Capital.

Also in the room, were members of the Porter family who were bidding furiously on works which their relative, a wealthy Montreal industrialist, had accumulated during his lifetime.

"That evening was the Canadian equivalent of a high powered international sale," Joyner recalls, "Pencer and the Thomsons were bidding neck and neck. I had to keep a sharp eye out to recognize a complex system of sophisticated bidding signals that included eye contact and body movements.

"In the end, Ken Thomson bought about $3 million worth of art which you can now see in his gallery at the downtown Bay store. But his son David was doing most of the bidding while Ken sat gazing out the window."

Selling Canadian art "wasn't always that easy," says Joyner who recalls that, in the old days at Sotheby's, his British superiors would send over an auctioneer from London to orchestrate the bidding in their Toronto sales.

"Later, they sent up an auctioneer from New York until, once, in the middle of a sale here in, Toronto, the New York auctioneer handed me the hammer and, told me to take over". In what Joyner recalls as a nightmare ordeal - "everything was in code and I couldn't make head or tail of it" - he experienced his baptism of fire as a fully fledged, up front auctioneer who not only ran Sotheby's but conducted bidding.

In 1985, Joyner broke with Sotheby's to establish his own Toronto based firm. As president of Joyner Fine Art Inc., he made his first big breakthrough with the Porter collection auction and, in 1989, established a major record with the single sale of a Clarence Gagnon canvas for $495,000.

At an auction last November, he sold a Cornelius Krieghoff painting to Toronto Sun reporter David Kendall for $17,710. Subsequently, Kendall was advised by Art Gallery of Ontario curator, Dennis Reid, that the painting was of questionable authorship. As a result Joyner refunded Kendall's money.

"Joyner Fine Art hasn't had anything like this happen before," he says, "but every auction house in Canada and practically all reputable dealers have had things sent back to them. Krieghoff was copied in his own lifetime as is the case with works by abstract artist Jean-Paul Riopelle."

Since he left Sotheby's, Joyner notes that his old firm has reverted to its colonialist practice of importing an auctioneer from New York. This will be the case when Sotheby's holds its annual spring sale at 6 p.m. next Wednesday at the Park Plaza Hotel, 4 Avenue Rd.

Joyner will conduct his own 25th anniversary auction at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the St. Lawrence Hall, 157 King St. E. Items in his sale (illustrated here) can be previewed today (3-5 p.m.) tomorrow and Tuesday. Sotheby's art is also on display today (1-8 p.m.) through Wednesday. Public admission is free.