Long time friend and donor to the Miramichi Salmon Association, Bruno Bobak, passed away in Fredericton on September 24th.

The notice from McAdam’s Funeral Home follows.

 The family of Bruno Bobak wish to announce his passing on Monday, September 24 following a brief battle with cancer. Bruno leaves behind Molly Lamb Bobak his wife of 66 years, his son Alexander (Edith Price), his daughter Anny Scoones and his granddaughter Julia Bobak.

Born at Wawelowska, Poland in 1923, Bruno Bobak emigrated to Canada in 1927.  At the age of thirteen he began Saturday morning art classes in Toronto under Arthur Lismer and later at the Central Technical School.

In 1942 he joined the army and was shortly thereafter selected to be an official war artist. He married fellow war artist Molly Lamb in 1945.

He and Molly settled briefly in Ottawa after the war working as artists and moved to Vancouver in 1947 where he taught at the Vancouver School of Art.

After a decade of work as an artist and instructor of art on the west coast, where he won much critical acclaim, he moved his family to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1960 to serve as artist in residence at the University of New Brunswick. In 1962 he took on the role of  Director of the University of New Brunswick Art Center.

Bruno retired in 1986 and has since devoted his time to painting, gardening and fly fishing for Atlantic Salmon.  Bruno Bobak is a member of the Canada Group of Painters, Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Canadian Society of Graphic Art, Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, British Columbia Society of Artists, and the Royal Canadian Academy.

He has participated in more than two hundred and fifty group exhibitions and has had more than eighty one-man shows, both in Canada and abroad.

Among a lifetime of awards and achievements he was especially proud of the Honorary Doctor of Letters from Saint Thomas University in 1984; the Honorary Doctor of Literature from the University of New Brunswick in 1986 and the Order of Canada in 1995.

A memorial service to honor his life will be announced at a later time.