Bruno Bobak: The Full Palette Edited By Bernard Riordon
4to. pp. 168. 64 colour, 43 b/w & 27 photographic illustrations. index. hardcover. dw. (fine condition). [Fredericton]: The Beaverbrook Art Gallery & Goose Lane Editions, [2006].
New in publisher's shrink wrap.
ISBN-10: 086492481X / ISBN-13: 9780864924810
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Bronislaw Josephus "Bris" Bobak sailed for Canada with his family at the age of two, eventually ending up in Toronto. A chance discovery of Saturday morning art classes at the Art Gallery of Toronto, organized Arthur Lismer, changed the direction of his life. Today, Bruno Bobak's paintings, drawings, and prints hang major collections in Canada, the United States, the UK. Poland, and Scandinavia.
During the Second World War. Bruno Bobak became Canada's youngest Official War Artist. It was also during the War that he met Molly Lamb, whom he later married and with whom he relocated first to Ottawa and later to Galiano Island and Vancouver. In 1947, he became head of the design department at the Vancouver School of Art (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design) and began showing his work in national and international exhibitions. In 1960, he was appointed Artist-in Residence for a one-year term at the University of New Brunswick. In 1962, he returned to Fredericton as director of the University of New Brunswick Art Centre.
Bruno Bobak is best known for his tender yet aggressive figurative paintings. Large in scale. Expressionistic in style, and vigorous and surprising in colour, they show profound sympathy for the human condition mingled with shrewd recognition of human frailty. His use of bold angular lines, impastoed application of paint, and grand gestures are memorable. attributes of his major work.
This sweeping look at the life and work of as illustrious artist approaches Bobak's art from the point of view of six artists, curators, and colleagues Hermenegilde Chiasson, the multi-talented artist who is also Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick: Herb Curtis, a novelist, essayist, and fishing companion; Laura Brandon, curator of War Art at the Canadian War Museum; the internationally renowned Vancouver painter, printmaker, and educator Gordon Smith; Marjory Rogers Donaldson, a painter, portraitist, and colleague: and critic and curator Roslyn Rosenfeld. Combining distinctive, thought-provoking texts with more than 95 reproductions of his paintings, drawings, and prints, Bruno Bobak: The Full Palette is a fitting tribute to this remarkable artist's life work.