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Bruno Bobak Canadian, b. 1923 Bruno Bobak was born in Poland in 1923 and by 1925 his family had settled in Canada. In 1936, in Toronto, Bobak was enrolled in Saturday Morning Art Classes at the Art Gallery of Toronto with Arthur Lismer among his teachers. Bobak continued his studies in visual arts at Toronto's Central Technical School. World War II intervened and he enlisted with the Canadian Armed Forces and was trained as a sapper before going overseas to England in 1943. A pivotal event in March 1944 for Bobak was his winning the Canadian Army Exhibition with his watercolour, "Cross Country Convoy." As a result, he was promoted in rank to Second Lieutenant and became Canada's youngest Official War Artist. Bobak's subject matter as a war artist focused on the aftermath of battles, as opposed to scenes of violent destruction. Being a war artist was formative for Bobak in that it paved the way for him becoming a professional artist. It was during this time that Bobak met and married Molly Lamb, a fellow war artist, in 1945. His First postwar job in Ottawa left little time for painting so he moved to Galiano Island with Molly and their young son, Alex. It was difficult to make a living there so Bobak took a position as Head of Design at the Vancouver College and remained there from 1947-1957. His paintings from this time have a strong sense of design and reflect the mysticism Bobak felt was an inherent quality of the west coast landscape. In 1957, Bobak won a Royal Society Canadian Government Overseas Fellowship, which enabled him to give up teaching and paint full time in Europe. It was also during this year that his daughter Annie was born. While in Europe Bobak met with artists and attended exhibitions of Turner and Monet whose techniques in landscape painting he incorporated into his own work in that genre. The work of Oscar Kokoshka and Edvard Munch were also admired for their expressionism. Bobak's work is not imitative of other artists; rather he deftly incorporates aspects of their style for his own purposes. For painting to be meaningful to Bobak it must be based on an intuitive drive rather than an intellectual concept and relate to the artist's experience. Humanistic qualities and emotional experiences reflected in an artwork are what are important to Bobak. Bobak became the Director of the Art Centre at the University of New Brunswick in 1962. In the 1960's he had a number of solo exhibitions in England and Norway. Among other honours, he received the Order of Canada in 1996. |
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Born 1923 Born in Wawelowka, Poland 1924 Immigrated to Saskatchewan Education 1959 Studied at City and Guilds of London Art School, London 1957 Obtained a Canadian Government Overseas Senior Fellowship, studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London 1938-1942 Central Technical School, Toronto 1936 Attended Saturday Morning Art Classes, Art Gallery of Toronto; studied with A. Lismer, D. Medhurst, A. Taylor, G. Webber Public Collections Born: - Wawelowka Poland, 1922 - Immigrated to Canada (Saskatchewan) in 1924 Studied: - 1936 Attended Saturday Morning Art Classes, Art Gallery of Toronto; studied with A. Lismer, D. Medhurst, A. Taylor, G. Webber - Central Technical School, Toronto (1938 - 1942) - Obtained a Canadian Government Overseas Senior Fellowship studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, 1957 - 1959 Studied at City and Guilds of London Art School, London, UK Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario Alberta College of Art, Calgary Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario Bank of Nova Scotia, Toronto Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa Canadian War Museum, National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, Ottawa C-I-L Art Collection, Toronto Concordia University Collection of Art, Montreal Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown Dalhousie Art Hallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia Department of External Affairs, Ottalwa Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan Hart House, Univ of Toronto, Toronto. Lavalin Inc, Montreal Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds, UK Library of Congress, Washington, DC London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario McIntosh Art Gallery, Univ. of Western Ontario, London, Ontario. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal Muzeum Narodowego, Warsaw, Poland New Brunswick Art Bank, Fredericton, New Brunswick New Brunswick Museum, St. John, New Brunswick Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo, Norway Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison Univ, Sackville, New Brunswick Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington South London Art Gallery, London, UK Toronto Dominion Bank, Toronto University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg Selected Solo Exhibitions 1970-71 "Bruno Bobak's Humanism", exhibition organized by Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick Awards and Prizes 1944 First Prize "Canadian Army Art Exhibition", The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa 1954 Jessie Dow Prize, 71st Annual Spring Exhibition, Montral Museum of Fine Arts for watercolour, Eclipse (The Winnipeg Art Gallery) 1955 C.W. Jefferys Award, Canadian Society of Graphic Art. 1960 First Prize Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Vancouver Art Gallery 1972 Canada Council Senior Fellowship 1978 Silver Jubilee Medal 1982 'Campus Gates 1964', chosen for reproduction on Canada 30 cent postage stamp, issued June 30 |
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