Toni Onley

New Zealand

1980

Molly Lamb Bobak, Canadian, 1920 – 2014 Poppies Watercolour 17 x 24 in signed PROVENANCE: Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal framed Molly Bobak Biography...

Molly Lamb Bobak, Canadian, 1920 – 2014 Flowers of the Field Watercolour 22 x 15 in signed framed Molly Bobak Biography (1922 - 2014) RCA It could be said that Molly Lamb Bobak was destined to be an artist. She was born on Lulu Island, near Vancouver, British Columbia, on February 25, 1920. She grew up in a bohemian enclave. Her father, Harold Mortimer Lamb, was a photographer and art critic. In 1926, her father opened a commercial art gallery in Vancouver, exhibiting painters, sculptors, and photographers. In 1938, Bobak attended art school at the Vancouver School of Art and studied under Jack Shadbolt, where she learned to improve her drawing and composition skills. While working at the Yellow Point Lodge during the summer of 1940, Lamb kept a diary filled with text and caricatures and drew everyone that she encountered. Bobak joined the Canadian Women’s Army Corps in 1942. While serving, she found endless material to paint and included these paintings in her personal journal, which was later published and titled “W110278: The Personal War Records of Private Lamb, M”, which included 147 folios and fifty single sheet sketches. After being stationed in Alberta and Quebec, the military recognized her artistic abilities and invited her to attend a drafting course in Toronto. After finishing the course, Lamb tried to become an official war artist. In 1942, Lamb was sent to Ottawa where she drew at the Trades Training offices where she designed posters and Christmas cards. Three of Bobak’s drawings were purchased by the Art Gallery of Ontario in the same year. In 1944, “Meal Parade, Hamilton Trades School” (n.d) tied for second prize at the National Gallery’s Canadian Army Art Show, which helped her receive the appointment as a war artist––the only woman who earned this designation. As women were not allowed on the active war front, Bobak was transferred to London, England, six weeks after Victory Day to document the aftermath of the war. After leaving the military, Bobak settled with her husband Bruno, in Vancouver. After the move, Bobak had little time to paint as she was teaching night courses at the Vancouver School of Art and tending to her children. After earning a French scholarship in 1950, Bobak, her husband, and their two children traveled to Paris where she experienced the works of modernist painters like Cézanne and Matisse. Cézanne’s work in particular influenced Bobak’s art, which can be seen in the geometric organization of “A Bakership, Saint-Léonard” (1951) and “The Saint Ives Train...

Dorothy Knowles, Canadian, b. 1927 Watercolour, 1982 22 1/2 x 30 in signed lower right PROVENANCE Property from the Collection of Theo Waddington, London, UK framed Dorothy Knowles Biography (1927 - 2023) RCA Dorothy Elsie Knowles was born on April 7, 1927 in Unity, Saskatchewan. She grew up on a farm overlooking a Prairie valley and initially had no plans to become a painter, studying biology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon between 1944 and 1948. At the time of her graduation, a friend persuaded her to enroll in a six-week summer course given by the University of Saskatchewan at Emma Lake. The course was led by Reta Cowley from Saskatoon and James Frederick Finley from the Ontario College of Art and under their guidance young Dorothy found a proclivity for art. Upon her return to Saskatoon she continued to study painting under Eli Bornstein...

Dorothy Knowles, Canadian, b. 1927 Watercolour, 1982 30 x 22 1/2 in 76.2 x 56.2cm signed and dated ‘D.Knowles.82.’ (lower right) PROVENANCE Property from the Collection of Theo Waddington, London, UK framed Dorothy Knowles Biography (1927 - 2023) RCA Dorothy Elsie Knowles was born on April 7, 1927 in Unity, Saskatchewan. She grew up on a farm overlooking a Prairie valley and initially had no plans to become a painter, studying biology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon between 1944 and 1948. At the time of her graduation, a friend persuaded her to enroll in a six-week summer course given by the University of Saskatchewan at Emma Lake. The course was led by Reta Cowley from Saskatoon and James Frederick Finley from the Ontario College of Art and under their guidance young Dorothy found a proclivity for art. Upon her return to Saskatoon she continued to study painting under Eli Bornstein...

FRANÇOIS MATHURIN ADALBERT, BARON DE COURCY (1805-1839) 'Le Negrito à l’ancre. Dans le port de la havanne' Indistinctly signed lower left Titled on the mount Pencil and watercolour, heightened with white, on paper, 24.8 x 34.6 cm Literature: The present watercolour will be illustrated in: - Prof. Manuel Garcia’s projected book on the disease and the slave trade provisionally titled “Fighting the Yellow Demon of Fever: The Struggle against Disease in the Illegal Slave Trade”. - Prof. Micael Zeuske’s forthcoming Global history of slave trade. Exhibited: Mexico City, 1998, Palacio Virreinal, El Barón de Courcy, illustrationes de un viaje, 1831-1833, no. 108 Note: Baron de Courcy was in the Caribbean in late 1832 and early 1833, following his tour of Mexico in 1832, on the last leg of his “Grand Voyage...

Marius Bauer (1867-1932) ‘Devotie in de Woestijn’ (Devotion in the Dessert near the pyramids of Gizeh, circa 1919) Signed lower right and titled lower left Watercolour on paper, H...

Maurice de Vlaminck was a French painter, best known as one of the spearheads of the Fauvism movement at the start of the 20th century. His reputation rests predominantly on his land...

Brown, grey and pink washes on beige paper 4 x 3 3/4 inches (10 x 9.5 cm) Signed: In Nuremberg Provenance Commissioned from the artist by Daniel Wadsworth Coit (1787 – 1876), and th...