A Woman of the Crowd - Molly Bobak Lamb
It’s a wet, grey, cold day in winter, on Wellington Street facing the Parliament Buildings. In the distance, the Centre Block is just visible as an outline through the snow fall, and a funeral cortege of cars leaves the buildings, surrounded by onlookers wearing coats and donning umbrellas. The procession slowly approaches the wrought iron gates and light standards, with their white globes shining through the greyness; bright winter coats stand out against the snow. The greyness reflects the sombre mood of those gathered to salute the passing of a great man.
This is a painting entitled Lester B. Pearson’s Funeral 1973, an oil on canvas featured in the Ottawa Art Gallery’s exposition of the works of Molly Bobak Lamb, A Woman of the Crowd. A native of British Columbia, she grew up in a home which welcomed artists such as Emily Carr, and she graduated from the Vancouver School of Art. She enlisted in the Canadian Women’s Army Corp. in 1942, sketching and painting everyday life in the Armed Forces. Being recognized by the Canadian government of the time as the only woman war artist, she went to Europe in 1945. She had a car and driver, being allowed access to devastated, bombed-out areas, and captured in sketches and watercolours the pathos and desolation of post-war Germany.
As she continued in her art career, Lamb Bobak became known for her representations of crowd scenes. She had a knack for capturing the movement and mood of gatherings of people, such as student protests, skating parties, and more formal events, and she used a variety of vantage points. Her earlier paintings were representational, but eased into a more impressionistic style over her sixty year career, as she merely suggested at human bodies walking, pushing and rippling in a crowd. The viewer could imagine being part of the excitement of the people all together! She liked crowd scenes: “mingling…. It’s like little ants crawling, the sort of insignificance and yet the beauty”.
I hope you will read more and appreciate the talent and perspective of this Canadian artist, who so effectively captured the moods and colours of the crowd, in war years and beyond.