One of Canada’s most celebrated figurative artists, Molly Lamb Bobak grew up surrounded by art. Her father, Harold Mortimer-Lamb, was a professional photographer, art critic and early champion of the Group of Seven. In Vancouver, where the artist was raised, he hosted intellectual and artistic soirées at his home, in addition to running a commercial gallery for Canadian painting, sculpture and photography. Molly was very much exposed to her father’s art scene, which left a lasting impression. Complemented by her mother’s progressive and independent spirit, and her belief in pursuing one’s interests, she was motivated to enroll at the Vancouver School of Art in 1938.
“Beach Crowd” is a prime example of the artist’s lively crowd scenes, populated with frolicking beach-goers in colourful swimsuits. Largely faceless, the figures’ identities are secondary, as is the seascape in the background; rather, emphasis is on movement, rhythm and colour. Bobak’s interest in depicting crowds, which became one of her best- known subjects, began at a young age and developed through many stages in her life. “I think that it is an interest I have had ever since I was a kid,” the artist said. “I simply love gatherings, mingling... It’s like little ants crawling, the sort of insignificance and yet the beauty of people all getting together.”
In the summer of 1940, while Bobak was employed as a maid at Yellow Point Lodge on Vancouver Island, she began keeping a diary, combining text with caricature drawings of the various people she encountered. The diary drew inspiration from the work of French artist and caricaturist Honoré Daumier.
In the autumn of 1942, Molly Bobak joined the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, and was first stationed in England. There, she found a multitude of figural subjects; as she later wrote in Canadian Art, “and everywhere you turn there is something terrific to paint. There is endless material in one barracks alone, though—one could spend hours at the desk in the main hall, drawing the C.W.A.C.’s checking in and out, the new recruits, the fatigue girls in their overalls, the orderly officer.” She also gravitated toward the crowd scenes of the victory parades of the Allied forces at the end of the war.
She returned to Canada in 1945 with Bruno Bobak, a fellow Canadian War Artist, and the couple got married that same year. They settled in Vancouver in 1947, where both Bruno and Molly took on teaching positions at the Vancouver School of Art - he during the day and she at night. She felt frustrated with her “stagnant” progress as an artist, as a result of being conditioned to document war scenes in a realistic, literal manner. She consulted Jack Shadbolt, former teacher and mentor, who suggested she revisit the formal elements of painting, focusing on line, shape, and colour rather than representational themes. This advice led her to further experiment and cultivate her own personal aesthetic as a mature painter.
In the 1950s, the Bobaks, who at this point had two children, spent a significant amount of time in Europe, including a year in France. In Paris, Molly Bobak was directly exposed to the work of Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. The post-impressionist and early Cubist styles deepened her interest in pattern and structured compositions. Molly Bobak’s approach to painting matured as she honed her formal painterly concerns and applied them to her preferred subjects—crowds, floral still-life paintings, landscapes, and urban scenes.
For several years after settling in Fredericton in 1960, the Bobaks returned to Europe every summer, immersing themselves in modern art and renewing their contact with art, artists and curators. The move to Fredericton supplied Molly Bobak with new subject matter, and her work began to reflect a celebratory attitude toward urban landscapes and especially the people who populated them. She received several commissions and grew to be known for her paintings of official gatherings at the Legislature, City Hall, and other civic and public events in Fredericton and across the Maritimes. As she explained to curator Joan Murray, “I have always been interested in informal movement—blowing wild flowers, parades, protests, crowds on the street, crowds anywhere; just as long as they turn into painting space in my head.”
She experimented with different perspectives in her crowd scenes - at times, she placed the viewer as part of the assembled crowd by using a ground-level perspective. In “Beach Crowd”, the viewer is placed at an elevated distance, accentuating the energy and sense of movement through a new perspective. Michelle Gewurtz writes of Bobak’s crowd scenes: “They achieve a careful balance of form, colour, and space, creating a clear, rationalized vision of moving scenes that are intentionally devoid of narrative.” The cheery and vibrant Beach Crowd is an important and monumental example of Molly Lamb Bobak’s figurative scenes, which are considered to be her greatest artistic accomplishment.
