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An upcoming Heffel art auction features works from a who’s who of Canadian painters, including Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris and Emily Carr.

But the showstopper is a coin — Haida artist James Hart’s The Dance Screen (The Scream Too).

It isn’t just any coin, however. It’s a one-of-a-kind artwork commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mint, and is made from 10 kilograms of pure Canadian gold.

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The face value of the coin is $100,000, but the artistic content is worth a lot more. It has a pre-auction estimate of $1.4 million to $1.8 million.

The coin is based on Hart’s monumental cedar carving, The Dance Screen (The Scream Too), which was partly carved at the Vancouver Art Gallery and is now one of the signature works at the Audain Art Museum in Whistler.

The original carving is huge — 4.75 metres (15 ft.) by 3.2 metres (12 ft.). The coin was rejigged from rectangular to round, with Hart working with the Mint’s artists to get it perfect.

“It brings together traditional Haida figures — a Shaman, the Beaver, Raven, Eagle, Frog, Orca and Mother Bear with cubs — whose life deeply depends on the Salmon, represented in human and animal form along the edge,” says the listing in the Heffel catalogue.

In person, it glows. Hart dropped by the Heffel Gallery on Granville Street on Wednesday with his wife Rosemary, the first time he’s seen the coin in person (it was cast in Ottawa).

“It looks pretty darn good,” he said. “Better than the photos. It’s got depth to it.”

The coin is quite large, 18 cm in diameter.

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“It’s heavy,” marvelled Hart as he picked it up to pose for a photographer. “I got a workout.”

The Royal Canadian Mint commissioned a five-kilogram silver coin of The Dance Screen in 2015. When David and Robert Heffel started working with the Mint a few years ago, they suggested doing a gold version.

“The Royal Canadian Mint is in the top two or three numismatic sovereign mints in the world,” said David Heffel. “There’s not a lot of sovereign mints that have the technology to produce gold that pure.”

Hart said working with the artists at the Mint was “a different type of carving.”

“I learned by talking to the engravers, how they fiddle with things so minutely,” he said.

“The way they pull it off, it’s just amazing. That’s a technique I wouldn’t mind learning. But it’s a whole other thing, a whole other game.”

Ten blanks were made, and the coin was struck using a special numismatic press that uses thousands of pounds of force. The blank was struck five times before the right coin was created.

“They didn’t work out, the registration wasn’t perfect, so those got melted down, and on the fifth try they got lucky,” said Heffel.

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Six “pearlescent pieces of responsibly sourced New Zealand abalone” are inlaid along the edges of the coin.

“The abalone in Haida Gwaii is on the endangered species list,” said Heffel. “This abalone comes from New Zealand, which has no restrictions on it.”

Hart said he hopes the coin will help raise awareness about the plight of the salmon today.

“Salmon have been looking after us for thousands of years,” he said. “We’ve always depended on them, the return of the salmon. But today their decline is getting so bad that it needs us now to look after them. It’s a reverse. We’ve got to step up to the plate. It’s not just us humans, the whole system depends on them coming back.”

The other side of the coin features an image of King Charles III by Canadian artist Steven Rosati.

King Charles had a big impact in Hart’s life — his first date with his wife Rosemary was when Charles unveiled the Bill Reid sculpture Raven And The First Men at the Museum of Anthropology in 1980.

The 72-year-old Hart is a hereditary chief in Haida Gwaii — his Haida name is 7IDANsuu. He is the great-grandson of legendary Haida carver Charles Edenshaw. Hart’s son Gwaligo is also an artist — he carved a Haida copper shield on a special cedar box that holds the coin.

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jmackie@postmedia.com

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