Gordon Appelbe Smith Auction Prices and Value Guide

Gordon Appelbe Smith auction prices are tracked in Appraisily's artist market index, with source-directory coverage of 457 records. Use this page to review sold-lot activity, market context, and valuation factors before requesting a formal appraisal.

Gordon Appelbe Smith auction prices: quick answer

Gordon Appelbe Smith auction prices depend on medium, size, date, condition, provenance, edition details, attribution confidence, and recent comparable auction sales.

Artist
Gordon Appelbe Smith
Source records
457
Market update
2026-02-16

Artist context

About Gordon Appelbe Smith

Gordon Appelbe Smith (1919–2020) was an English-born Canadian painter, printmaker, and sculptor whose seven-decade career helped shape West Coast modernism. Born in East Brighton, Sussex, he emigrated to Canada in 1933 and later studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Smith is recognized for expanding the dialogue between abstraction and representation, producing work that moved fluidly between gestural painting and structured composition. He taught at the Vancouver School of Art alongside contemporaries Bruno Bobak, B.C. Binning, and Jack Shadbolt, then spent 26 years at the University of British Columbia before retiring in 1982 to paint full-time. His work is held by major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art and Tate. Smith and his wife Marion established the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation in 2002 to support arts education. He continued painting well into his nineties at his West Coast Modern home in Vancouver.

Abstraction and representation dialoguepaintingprintmakingsculpture

Common works and media

Smith worked across painting, printmaking, and sculpture. His paintings range from large-scale abstract canvases to more representational landscapes and figurative compositions. Printmaking — including serigraphs and lithographs — forms a significant portion of his auction presence. Collectors may also encounter drawings, mixed-media works on paper, and occasional sculptural pieces. Subjects include West Coast landscapes, abstract compositions, and explorations of form and color that bridge gestural expression with geometric structure.

Market and appraisal context

Gordon Appelbe Smith's auction market is well established with 133 catalogued lots spanning October 2003 through November 2025, 86 of which carry recorded prices. The market is anchored by Canadian post-war auction houses, with Waddington's handling the highest-value lots. Realized prices range from CAD 70 for editioned prints to CAD 27,000 for major paintings, with a median of CAD 540 and an interquartile spread of CAD 300–3,000. This wide dispersion reflects the breadth of Smith's output: editioned serigraphs and etchings cluster below CAD 500, mid-tier works on paper and smaller paintings typically realize CAD 300–1,000, and significant oil paintings from notable periods have reached CAD 4,750–18,750. Liquidity is steady at 3–4 priced lots per year across multiple houses, indicating consistent but niche demand concentrated in the Canadian auction circuit. The CAD 18,750 result for RAIN FOREST (1987) at Waddington's in November 2025 and the CAD 4,750 result for BAY OF FUNDY (1981) in June 2025 suggest that museum-quality oils from mature periods command premiums well above the median.

Auction categories and appraisal factors

Common auction categories

  • painting
  • printmaking
  • works on paper
  • sculpture

Value drivers

  1. [object Object]

Appraisal caveats

  • No specific auction price records are available in the collected source pack; valuation guidance is general.
  • Smith's long career and varied output mean that works span a wide range of quality, period, and medium, which can significantly affect value.
  • [object Object]

Evidence

Sources for artist context

This source-grounded artist context passed Appraisily's promotion threshold: high confidence, strong sources.

Source-grounded artist Markdown

Data basis

This page is built from Appraisily's public auction market index. Private transactions, incomplete sale feeds, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

LLM-readable Markdown summary for Gordon Appelbe Smith

LLM summary index · LLM full index

Artist value FAQ

How much is Gordon Appelbe Smith worth?

Comparable public auction sales are the best starting point, but final value depends on the specific artwork, condition, size, medium, provenance, and attribution confidence.

Can Appraisily value my Gordon Appelbe Smith artwork?

Yes. Appraisily can review photos, dimensions, signatures, condition, provenance, and comparable market data to prepare a current valuation.