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MareGold Galleries / Geoff Butler Gallery

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MareGold Galleries / Geoff Butler Gallery

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The MareGold Galleries presents a personally curated collection of historical art, fine timepieces, and small curiosities — each piece chosen for its beauty, its story, and its distinction.

06/23/2026

FROM AN OLD FISHING SHACK TO PEGGY’S COVE: THE JOURNEY OF AN ORIGINAL 1986 NEIL DEPEW MASTERPIECE

Place bids now at:
https://bid.maregold.com

Behind every iconic artist is a definitive turning point. For celebrated Nova Scotian realist Neil Depew, the foundation of his career was built right inside a historic fishing shack down in French Village, Nova Scotia. Beginning in 1992, Depew made his living selling his early artwork out of Albert’s Wharf Gallery—the rustic, stone-fireplace workspace once owned by legendary local fisherman Albert Burchell.
The original 1986 watercolor currently on our auction block is a rare glimpse into this foundational era. Painted a mere two years after he began his professional journey, this milestone piece perfectly captures the raw, rustic textures of Maritime survival that defined his early workspace.
Fast forward to July 2022: Depew achieved a lifelong 20-year dream by moving into the historic William deGarthe studio space at 111 Peggy’s Point Road in Peggy's Cove. Today, his flagship Neil Depew Gallery overlooks the exact, world-famous coastline he has painted thousands of times.
While thousands of international tourists visit his gallery by the Sou'Wester Restaurant to purchase open-edition prints, finding a one-of-a-kind original watercolor from his 1980s French Village era is practically impossible on the secondary market.

Auction Highlights:
Authentic 1986 Original Watercolor (Not a print!)
Hand-Signed & Dated by the artist in cursive script
Museum Quality: Professionally framed & matted (16" x 20")
Provenance: A prime early work tracing his historic trajectory to Peggy’s Cove.
Auction Timeline:
Bidding is open from June 17 to July 12, 2026
Auction officially closes online at 8:00 PM on July 12th
Don't miss out on this rare piece of Canadian art history! Place your bids now:
http://bid.maregold.com

06/21/2026

Featured in the Nova Scotia Art Auction: "Bridge from Gardens, Annapolis Royal N.S." by Richard Rudnicki
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com
There's a spot at the edge of the Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens where the land opens up just enough to reveal something quietly extraordinary — two great, gnarled trees framing a long steel railway bridge stretching across the Allain River, the summer sky shifting pink and blue overhead, the marshland cattails swaying below.
On August 21, 2005, Richard Rudnicki set up his easel right there and painted it.
Rudnicki (1951–2019) was one of Nova Scotia's most beloved and decorated realist painters — a fierce advocate for Maritime arts, the environment, and social justice, whose work was as much about bearing witness as it was about beauty. His paintings hang in the Halifax Army Museum at the Citadel, in prominent private collections across the country, and now, one of them could hang in your home.
"Bridge from Gardens" is a painting that rewards you the longer you look at it. The two twisting tree trunks anchor the composition like sentinels, pulling your eye inward past layers of lush summer green toward that iron bridge — a quiet symbol of the history embedded in this corner of the Annapolis Valley. Rudnicki's brushwork is bold and impressionistic, alive with energy, yet the scene itself feels utterly still. That tension — between movement and stillness, past and present — is what makes his work so enduring.
The back of the panel tells its own story: hand-inscribed in Rudnicki's own hand — "Bridge from Gardens, Richard Rudnicki, Aug 21/05, Annapolis Royal N.S." — a painting that knows exactly where it came from.
Original oil on panel, hand-signed in red script lower right, fully inscribed on reverse�11 x 14 inches — unframed, ready to drop into a standard or floating frame�Painted on location, August 21, 2005
A piece of Annapolis Royal, painted by one of its finest champions, available now in the Nova Scotia Art Auction.
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com�See it in person: Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm at MareGold Galleries and Auctions, 212 St. George Street, Annapolis Royal.
Questions? [email protected]

06/19/2026

Featured in the Nova Scotia Art Auction: "The Fish Table" by Ken Housego
Some art stops you in your tracks. This is one of those pieces.
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com

"The Fish Table" is the work of Kenneth "Ken" Edward Housego (1952–2023) — NSCAD graduate, MFA from York University, 35-year tenured professor, and one of the most joyfully unconventional voices in Canadian folk expressionism. Ken spent decades teaching art in Alberta before returning home to his studio in Chester, Nova Scotia, where he continued creating the kind of work that makes you smile, then think, then smile again.
And this piece may be among his last.
At the heart of it is a large, hand-carved wooden trout — but this is no ordinary fish. Ken embedded the creature's flank with actual ceramic paint pots and abstract paint splatters, a nod to his celebrated philosophy of creative "cannibalization" — the idea that old studio materials deserve new life, new stories, new form. The fish becomes a palette. The palette becomes a fish. Only Ken Housego would think of that.
Below it, a stunning live-edge laminated hardwood tabletop — inlaid with real metal dock cleats as decorative accents — sits atop one of the most elaborate pedestals you'll ever see: an ornately carved, white-painted architectural base crowned with repeating finials, decorative k***s, and a heavy spherical foot. It is functional furniture, fine art, Maritime heritage, and playful storytelling all at once.
Ken's work is held in prominent public collections including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Pieces like this don't come up often. Pieces like this — potentially among his final works — may not come up again.
Mixed media construction — carved wood, laminated hardwood, ceramic paint wells, acrylic pigments, metal boat hardware�Approx. 40" H x 34" W x 20" D
�Estimated value: $2,500 – $3,500 CAD
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com�See it in person: Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm at MareGold Bookstore, 212 St. George Street, Annapolis Royal.
Questions? [email protected]

06/18/2026

Featured in the Nova Scotia Art Auction: "The Long Shed, Tupperville" by Cluny Maher
There's a particular kind of quiet that settles over the Annapolis Valley in deep winter — and Cluny Maher has spent decades learning how to paint it.
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com
Born in Quebec in 1941 and trained at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia), Maher made Tupperville, Nova Scotia his permanent home in 1978. Ever since, he's devoted his career to documenting something that's slowly disappearing from our landscape: the old wooden barns and uncluttered rural vistas that once defined farms up and down the eastern seaboard.
This painting, "The Long Shed Tupperville N.S.," captures one of those barns buried under a heavy blanket of snow, a bare tree trunk slicing through the foreground like a dividing line between past and present. Maher's brushwork plays cool blue snow-shadow against the warm sienna of weathered wood, with a pale amber glow along the horizon hinting at a winter sun about to disappear. It's a small, still moment — but it carries the full weight of an Atlantic Canadian winter.
Original oil on canvas, hand-signed by the artist, in excellent gallery condition and ready to hang in a substantial matte-silver gallery frame with cream canvas-textured mat. Canvas: 16 x 24" | Framed: approx. 22 x 30"
Maher's work hangs in respected Maritime galleries including the Teichert Gallery and Harvest Gallery — and now it's part of our Nova Scotia Art Auction.
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com See it in person: Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–5pm, at MareGold Bookstore, 212 St. George Street, Annapolis Royal.
Questions? Reach us at [email protected]

06/17/2026

Nova Scotia Art Auction
Paintings and prints from Nova Scotia artists and Nova Scotia subjects — featuring Annapolis Valley artists from Paint the Town.
Auction dates: June 17 – July 12, 2026 - Bidding closes at 8:00 PM on July 12th
Bid online: https://bid.maregold.com
Support artists. Invest in local. Celebrate Nova Scotia.

05/28/2026

Whatever you're into, there's something on this table for you.
Only Three Days Left!!!!
Feral for the rewilders. Noise for the curious. Florilegium for the botanists. Glamour for the historians. The Dish for the food lovers. Waterfall Atlas for the adventurers — a $68 book starting at just $5.
150 lots. All brand new. All starting at $5. 3 days left.
https://bid.maregold.com [email protected]

05/26/2026

MAREGOLD ONLINE BOOK AUCTION — BIDDING NOW!
107 brand-new books. Every one starting at just $5. Some with retail values over $100.
As you'd expect from MareGold, every book is new — and some are still factory sealed. A few show minor shop wear or shipping damage, but every lot is described honestly so you know exactly what you're bidding on.
MareGold's online book auction is live now, featuring a hand-picked selection of exceptional non-fiction titles spanning art, history, nature, cooking, travel, gardening, atlases, homesteading, and so much more.
Auction runs May 25 – May 31, 2026 - Bidding closes Sunday, May 31st at 8:00 PM Atlantic Time
Want to see the books in person before you bid? All lots can be inspected at the MareGold Bookstore, Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM.
Every lot starts at just $5. No reserves. No minimums. Just bid and win.
Browse all 107 lots & bid now: https://bid.maregold.com [email protected] | maregold.com

05/24/2026

MAREGOLD ONLINE ART AUCTION — CLOSING TONIGHT!
Bidding ends Sunday, May 24th at 8:00 PM Atlantic Time — this is your last chance!
Bid Now: https://bid.maregold.com
51 lots of exceptional original art — oils, watercolours, prints, mixed media, abstracts, landscapes, portraits, and travel scenes from around the world. And yes, many lots still have bids under $20. Original art. Real deals.
Bidding closes TONIGHT at 8:00 PM Atlantic — don't wait!
Bid Now: https://bid.maregold.com
[email protected] | maregold.com

05/23/2026

Found in an attic. And it stops you cold.
Bid now: https://bid.maregold.com
This is not a weekend market find. This is a 119-year-old oil painting by James Louis Weston — one of the most significant names in early Canadian art — hauled out of storage and into the light for the first time in who knows how long.
Painted in 1906, at the absolute peak of his career.
A turquoise wave explodes against dark coastal rock. Two sea stacks stand like sentinels in churning surf. The storm sky tears open above them. And the impasto on those rocks — you don't just see the weight, you feel it.
Weston didn't come from nowhere. His father, James Weston Sr., was a founding member of the Society of Canadian Artists. This painting carries that bloodline in every brushstroke.
Signed. Dated. Original period gilt gesso frame with ornate corner detail. The whole thing intact, exactly as it left his studio.
119 years old. Still commanding the room.
Oil on canvas · Signed J. Weston, 1906 - Period gilt gesso frame
Bidding closes May 24, 2026
Bid now: https://bid.maregold.com

05/22/2026

Late addition!
Paris in the Rain — The Way You Always Imagined It
Lot 51, bid now https://bid.maregold.com
The Arc de Triomphe sits in the middle distance, half dissolved in grey light. On the wet street below, figures move under the haze — Rambert's signature "clothespin people," loose and gestural, alive without being fussy. Café awnings, tree canopies, reflections on the pavement. The whole city caught in that particular mood that only Paris seems to own.
René Rambert was born in France in 1901 and spent a long career painting exactly this — the impressionistic heartbeat of Paris. Thick impasto, rain-slicked streets, the Arc appearing again and again like an old friend. He signed his work variously as P. Rambert, R. Rambert, or René Rambert, and his paintings found their way into homes across the world for good reason. They're warm. They're accomplished. And they make you feel like you've been somewhere.
This is an original oil on canvas. Signed lower right: P. Rambert.
🎨 René Rambert · 25 x 21 in, Lot 51 - Bidding closes May 24, 2026 https://bid.maregold.com

Address

212 St. George Street
Annapolis Royal, NS
B0S1A0

Opening Hours

Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 5pm

Website

http://maregold.com/

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