Art Windsor-Essex will part ways with work by Andy Warhol and Canadian painter Paul Kane

Windsor's art gallery will be saying goodbye to two big-ticket pieces of art from its collection later this month — but says their sale will establish a new fund to purchase more art with local connections. 

Cowley Abbott, a Toronto-based art auction house, will action two Art Windsor-Essex (AWE) pieces in late May: A Paul Kane oil painting, Party of Indians in Two Canoes on Mountain Lake, dated from the 1840s, and an Andy Warhol print of Wayne Gretzky. 

"We're in this whole process of thinking about what's in our collection, what makes sense to hold and what might make sense to release at this moment in time," said Jennifer Matotek, executive director of AWE.

She says the gallery recently undertook a review of the pieces in its collection to identify works to deaccession — museum-speak for sell or remove from the gallery's collection.

The Warhol print and the Kane oil painting are two of about 100 pieces the gallery has identified to deaccession. 

"Art galleries, public art galleries that hold collections in the public trust for people, there's costs associated with it, there's resources associated with it," she said. 

"[It] doesn't take away from their excellence, but just you know, is it something that makes sense for us to continue having in our collection?"

The gallery will have a show in April of the works it plans to deaccession. The pieces were chosen by AWE's curatorial and executive teams, with their board and external affairs committee. Matotek says the Warhol print was actually a duplicate within AWE's collection. 

Rob Cowley is a Canadian art specialist and the president of Cowley Abbott, the firm handling the auction. 

He says the pieces have generated global interest. While their experts have estimated the value of both pieces, he says they could very well "exceed expectations"  at auction. 

"For collectors, this is a fantastic opportunity to own two very different, but two highly celebrated works of art by quite renowned artists," he says. 

Cowley said the Kane painting could sell for between $600,000 and $800,000, while the Warhol print — one of about 300 in existence — could go for between $15,000 and $30,000. 

Paul Kane is a 19th century Canadian painter, and Party of Indians in Two Canoes on Mountain Lake is more than 180 years old. His work is featured in the National Gallery of Canada and Royal Ontario Museum. 

Some of Kane's works have sold for more than $1 million, he says, including one Kane canvas that Cowley Abbott auctioned in 2022. There's a particularly large collection of his work in Texas.