TORONTO, CANADA.- An oil painting by E.J. Hughes, 91, sold for $920,000 at the Heffel Fine Art Auction House sale. The painting dates from 1946 and portrays fishing boats in a B.C. river inlet. Arbutus Tree by Emily Carr sold for $370,000.

E.J. Hughes stated, "I was going to be very happy if it sold for $300,000, the asking price. That's wonderful, although... I sold it 50 years ago for a few hundred dollars. It will probably raise the value of them (his works). It's a great help. Isn't that very close to a million? Emily Carr, watch out."

Robert Heffel, gallery owner said, "Emily Carr is not known for double-sided canvases. So the portrait (opposite Arbutus Tree) would have been painted first, probably when she was in San Francisco at the art school there, around 1890."

Born in North Vancouver in 1913, E.J. Hughes studied under Charles H. Scott, Jock Macdonald and Frederick Varley at the Vancouver School of Applied Art and Design. After graduating in 1933, and following two years of post-graduate studies, Hughes undertook print and mural projects with fellow art students. In 1939, Hughes joined the military and spent six years expanding his artistic skills as an official war artist. After his discharge from the military in 1946 he returned to the west coast of Canada, settled in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island with wife Fern Smith and began a lifelong study of the province and its landscape as a professional artist.

Always a quiet achiever, Hughes was the inaugural recipient of an Emily Carr Scholarship on the recommendation of Group of Seven member Lawren Harris. By 1951, Hughes was represented in public collections in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver—an achievement unparalleled by his contemporaries at the time. For more than thirty-five years he was represented by Max Stern of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal. In 2001, E.J. Hughes received the Order of Canada. His achievements and rare success are due to his singular approach to representing Canada with passion and originality.

E.J. Hughes lives on Vancouver Island where he continues to refine his vision of life in the place that has been his home and inspiration for 90 years.