Hyfler/Rosner
2009-03-14 17:51:40 UTC
ELIZABETH HOLBROOK, 95: SCULPTOR
Sculptor brought bronze to life
Hamilton artist crafted realistic likenesses of the great
figures of the 20th century - Shaw, Churchill, Diefenbaker
GAY ABBATE
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 14, 2009
If you have attended the Shaw Festival in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., in the past 12 years, you have
probably strolled past the larger-than-life statue of Irish
playwright George Bernard Shaw. Most visitors do not know
that the creator of the bronze statue in a café courtyard on
Queen Street, the town's main thoroughfare, was Elizabeth
Holbrook, one of Canada's foremost portrait sculptors.
Ms. Holbrook died on Feb. 23 in the St. Joseph's Villa
nursing home in Hamilton of age-related illness. She was 95.
Her name may elude many Canadians, but her work is
represented in more than 50 important public collections
worldwide, and in numerous private collections. Her
sculpture of James Robinson, American founder of Crossroads,
a volunteer work program, is in the Smithsonian National
Portrait Gallery in Washington, and won a gold medal from
the National Sculpture Society of New York in 1969.
An earlier work, a bust of her mentor, sculptor Emanuel
Hahn, is in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The
Queen owns a six-inch-high bust of herself that Ms. Holbrook
completed in 1999. Her commissioned bronze busts of Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker and Ellen Fairclough, Canada's
first female cabinet minister, are in the Parliament
Buildings in Ottawa. A bronze bust of Winston Churchill in
St. John's, commissioned by Newfoundland, is considered one
of her best works. His granddaughter, Celia Sandys, has
referred to it as one of the finest she had ever seen. Ms.
Sandys, author of five books on her grandfather, called Ms.
Holbrook's contribution to Canadian art immeasurable. "Her
portraits of the leading figures of the 20th century,
including the bronze sculpture of my grandfather ... are an
enduring legacy for future generations."
Known primarily for her bronze busts of Canadians and
prominent contemporaries, Ms. Holbrook also did liturgical
art, oil paintings, plaques, war memorials, animal figures,
fountains and medals.
One medal depicts former Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor
encircled in Canadian and American flags. It commemorates
his role in providing refuge to six Americans in Iran during
the 1979 hostage crisis and facilitating their safe passage
out of the country. A medal of Jacques Cousteau and his
ship, Calypso, is in the British Museum in London.
Ms. Holbrook was multifaceted, able to balance her work with
family responsibilities. She often attended equestrian
events around the world where her daughter, Jane, an
accomplished rider, was competing, said her son, David
Holbrook.
With her ability to fulfill family obligations without
sacrificing her art, she was a pioneering feminist, although
she would never have called herself one, said Susan Dux of
Vancouver, who is writing a biography authorized by the
artist. "Most artists around that time gave up their careers
to be married, but Elizabeth Holbrook refused to do that.
So, in that sense, she was quite unique."
Ms. Holbrook was interested only in traditional art because
of its realism, said Christian Corbet, a young Canadian
sculptor whom she took under her wing when they met in 1996.
The depiction of her subjects is as realistic as it was in
her power to achieve. "She said that young people are full
of garbage and don't know what they're doing. She had
contempt for experimental art, which she didn't see as being
based on any principles," said Mr. Corbet, who became a
close friend.
Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook was born in Hamilton, one of two
children of Alma and William Bradford, a diamond salesman
for a jewellery company.
Her adolescent years were uneventful until at she turned 16
and had a defining moment. A classmate, who routinely drove
her to school, hit a deep pothole causing Ms. Holbrook to
strike her head on the car roof with such force that her
back fractured. That led to a year of lying flat on her back
on a board. She recovered and did not experience further
problems.
Even before the accident, she had hated high school and the
enforced period of recuperation did little to alter that.
Deciding she wanted to be an artist, she persuaded her
father to send her to the Hamilton Art School, where she
fell in love with portraiture. Graduating in 1931, she moved
to Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art. She
specialized in sculpture under the tutelage of German-born
Mr. Hahn. She graduated in 1935, winning the
Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for sculpture and a scholarship
for a year's study at the Royal College of Art in London. On
her return in 1936, she married Hamilton dentist John
Holbrook, the friend in whose car she was injured. The
couple settled on a farm outside Ancaster, near Hamilton.
She converted part of the barn into a studio. She continued
with her art, worked on the farm and raised three children
while her husband served in the Second World War as an army
dentist. When he returned at the war's end, she continued to
study and learn, spending time in 1948 at the Cranbrook
Academy of Art in Ann Arbor, Mich. There, she studied under
renowned Swedish sculptor Carl Milles.
The 1950s were another defining point in her personal and
professional life. A fire in the barn in 1952 destroyed her
studio and many early works. Then the Ontario government
expropriated her farm to build an expressway. But the
greatest tragedy, which occurred just as a new decade began,
was the death of her 16-year-old son in a riding accident.
All three of her children loved horses. David taught riding
and Jane was the first female member of Canada's jumping
team. William, her youngest, was competing in a
horse-jumping event attended by his mother when his horse
failed to take a jump and rolled over him.
Ms. Holbrook internalized her sorrow and rarely spoke about
the accident, David said. William's death caused her to
reassess her life and her art. She turned to the Anglican
Church for solace and answers. Her spiritual journey led her
to the belief that her talent was a gift from God, Mr.
Corbet said. She told him: "I felt compelled to do
liturgical work as a result."
Forced to find a new home, the Holbrooks purchased a farm on
the other side of Ancaster and built an art studio she
designed. Art fed her soul, but Ms. Holbrook also had a
great interest in raising and breeding horses. In the early
1960s, during a visit to England, she became interested in
New Forest Ponies, a breed found in the New Forest area of
southern England. She was the first to bring the ponies to
Canada. Because of her, the breed has experienced tremendous
growth in North America, David said.
Ms. Holbrook sold half of the farm after her husband's death
in 1998. She continued to live in the house and work in her
studio until 2001. During this period, she sculpted her
final works - the Queen's portrait and busts of former media
mogul Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel. The Blacks
sat for the portraits before the start of his legal
problems.
Ms. Holbrook eventually moved into a retirement home until a
fall put her into St. Joseph's Villa in Hamilton.
Ms. Holbrook considered money incidental to her art. She did
not take on many commissions, preferring projects that
interested her. She would think about marketing a work only
once it was completed. Mr. Corbet said her approach to art
was: "I will do and sculpt and paint what I want when I
want. And if I sell it, that's good. If I don't, that's
okay. I don't do it for the money."
Many artists refuse to share their secrets, but that was not
the case with Ms. Holbrook. "She most certainly handed hers
to me on a silver platter," Mr. Corbet said. "If it wasn't
for Elizabeth having entered my life and being interested in
my career, I clearly would not be where I am today."
She also shared her knowledge with others. In the 1960s, she
taught at the Dundas Valley School of Art. Later in her
career, she was an instructor at the Burlington Cultural
Centre and at McMaster University in her hometown. She was
awarded the Order of Canada for her contribution to the arts
and received an honorary doctorate from McMaster . She
co-founded the Canadian Portrait Academy with Mr. Corbet in
1997.
Toward the latter stage of her career, Ms. Holbrook slowed
down, reducing her daily workload to five hours from eight,
one of the few concessions she made to age. The other was
adding more fruits and vegetables to her diet and taking
vitamin supplements. She loved chocolate and enjoyed a glass
or two of her favourite Scotch every evening, her son said.
ELIZABETH HOLBROOK
Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook was born on Nov. 7, 1913, in
Hamilton. She died on Feb. 23, 2009, in Hamilton. She was
95. She leaves her children, David and Jane, her
grandchildren, Christopher, Susan and Andrew, and her
brother, Jack Bradford. She was predeceased by her son,
William, in 1960, and by her husband, John, in 1998. The
Canadian Portrait Academy will hold an exhibition of Ms.
Holbrook's work at the Bay of Islands Bistro in Corner Brook
from Nov. 12 to 22.
Sculptor brought bronze to life
Hamilton artist crafted realistic likenesses of the great
figures of the 20th century - Shaw, Churchill, Diefenbaker
GAY ABBATE
Special to The Globe and Mail
March 14, 2009
If you have attended the Shaw Festival in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., in the past 12 years, you have
probably strolled past the larger-than-life statue of Irish
playwright George Bernard Shaw. Most visitors do not know
that the creator of the bronze statue in a café courtyard on
Queen Street, the town's main thoroughfare, was Elizabeth
Holbrook, one of Canada's foremost portrait sculptors.
Ms. Holbrook died on Feb. 23 in the St. Joseph's Villa
nursing home in Hamilton of age-related illness. She was 95.
Her name may elude many Canadians, but her work is
represented in more than 50 important public collections
worldwide, and in numerous private collections. Her
sculpture of James Robinson, American founder of Crossroads,
a volunteer work program, is in the Smithsonian National
Portrait Gallery in Washington, and won a gold medal from
the National Sculpture Society of New York in 1969.
An earlier work, a bust of her mentor, sculptor Emanuel
Hahn, is in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. The
Queen owns a six-inch-high bust of herself that Ms. Holbrook
completed in 1999. Her commissioned bronze busts of Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker and Ellen Fairclough, Canada's
first female cabinet minister, are in the Parliament
Buildings in Ottawa. A bronze bust of Winston Churchill in
St. John's, commissioned by Newfoundland, is considered one
of her best works. His granddaughter, Celia Sandys, has
referred to it as one of the finest she had ever seen. Ms.
Sandys, author of five books on her grandfather, called Ms.
Holbrook's contribution to Canadian art immeasurable. "Her
portraits of the leading figures of the 20th century,
including the bronze sculpture of my grandfather ... are an
enduring legacy for future generations."
Known primarily for her bronze busts of Canadians and
prominent contemporaries, Ms. Holbrook also did liturgical
art, oil paintings, plaques, war memorials, animal figures,
fountains and medals.
One medal depicts former Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor
encircled in Canadian and American flags. It commemorates
his role in providing refuge to six Americans in Iran during
the 1979 hostage crisis and facilitating their safe passage
out of the country. A medal of Jacques Cousteau and his
ship, Calypso, is in the British Museum in London.
Ms. Holbrook was multifaceted, able to balance her work with
family responsibilities. She often attended equestrian
events around the world where her daughter, Jane, an
accomplished rider, was competing, said her son, David
Holbrook.
With her ability to fulfill family obligations without
sacrificing her art, she was a pioneering feminist, although
she would never have called herself one, said Susan Dux of
Vancouver, who is writing a biography authorized by the
artist. "Most artists around that time gave up their careers
to be married, but Elizabeth Holbrook refused to do that.
So, in that sense, she was quite unique."
Ms. Holbrook was interested only in traditional art because
of its realism, said Christian Corbet, a young Canadian
sculptor whom she took under her wing when they met in 1996.
The depiction of her subjects is as realistic as it was in
her power to achieve. "She said that young people are full
of garbage and don't know what they're doing. She had
contempt for experimental art, which she didn't see as being
based on any principles," said Mr. Corbet, who became a
close friend.
Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook was born in Hamilton, one of two
children of Alma and William Bradford, a diamond salesman
for a jewellery company.
Her adolescent years were uneventful until at she turned 16
and had a defining moment. A classmate, who routinely drove
her to school, hit a deep pothole causing Ms. Holbrook to
strike her head on the car roof with such force that her
back fractured. That led to a year of lying flat on her back
on a board. She recovered and did not experience further
problems.
Even before the accident, she had hated high school and the
enforced period of recuperation did little to alter that.
Deciding she wanted to be an artist, she persuaded her
father to send her to the Hamilton Art School, where she
fell in love with portraiture. Graduating in 1931, she moved
to Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Art. She
specialized in sculpture under the tutelage of German-born
Mr. Hahn. She graduated in 1935, winning the
Lieutenant-Governor's Medal for sculpture and a scholarship
for a year's study at the Royal College of Art in London. On
her return in 1936, she married Hamilton dentist John
Holbrook, the friend in whose car she was injured. The
couple settled on a farm outside Ancaster, near Hamilton.
She converted part of the barn into a studio. She continued
with her art, worked on the farm and raised three children
while her husband served in the Second World War as an army
dentist. When he returned at the war's end, she continued to
study and learn, spending time in 1948 at the Cranbrook
Academy of Art in Ann Arbor, Mich. There, she studied under
renowned Swedish sculptor Carl Milles.
The 1950s were another defining point in her personal and
professional life. A fire in the barn in 1952 destroyed her
studio and many early works. Then the Ontario government
expropriated her farm to build an expressway. But the
greatest tragedy, which occurred just as a new decade began,
was the death of her 16-year-old son in a riding accident.
All three of her children loved horses. David taught riding
and Jane was the first female member of Canada's jumping
team. William, her youngest, was competing in a
horse-jumping event attended by his mother when his horse
failed to take a jump and rolled over him.
Ms. Holbrook internalized her sorrow and rarely spoke about
the accident, David said. William's death caused her to
reassess her life and her art. She turned to the Anglican
Church for solace and answers. Her spiritual journey led her
to the belief that her talent was a gift from God, Mr.
Corbet said. She told him: "I felt compelled to do
liturgical work as a result."
Forced to find a new home, the Holbrooks purchased a farm on
the other side of Ancaster and built an art studio she
designed. Art fed her soul, but Ms. Holbrook also had a
great interest in raising and breeding horses. In the early
1960s, during a visit to England, she became interested in
New Forest Ponies, a breed found in the New Forest area of
southern England. She was the first to bring the ponies to
Canada. Because of her, the breed has experienced tremendous
growth in North America, David said.
Ms. Holbrook sold half of the farm after her husband's death
in 1998. She continued to live in the house and work in her
studio until 2001. During this period, she sculpted her
final works - the Queen's portrait and busts of former media
mogul Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel. The Blacks
sat for the portraits before the start of his legal
problems.
Ms. Holbrook eventually moved into a retirement home until a
fall put her into St. Joseph's Villa in Hamilton.
Ms. Holbrook considered money incidental to her art. She did
not take on many commissions, preferring projects that
interested her. She would think about marketing a work only
once it was completed. Mr. Corbet said her approach to art
was: "I will do and sculpt and paint what I want when I
want. And if I sell it, that's good. If I don't, that's
okay. I don't do it for the money."
Many artists refuse to share their secrets, but that was not
the case with Ms. Holbrook. "She most certainly handed hers
to me on a silver platter," Mr. Corbet said. "If it wasn't
for Elizabeth having entered my life and being interested in
my career, I clearly would not be where I am today."
She also shared her knowledge with others. In the 1960s, she
taught at the Dundas Valley School of Art. Later in her
career, she was an instructor at the Burlington Cultural
Centre and at McMaster University in her hometown. She was
awarded the Order of Canada for her contribution to the arts
and received an honorary doctorate from McMaster . She
co-founded the Canadian Portrait Academy with Mr. Corbet in
1997.
Toward the latter stage of her career, Ms. Holbrook slowed
down, reducing her daily workload to five hours from eight,
one of the few concessions she made to age. The other was
adding more fruits and vegetables to her diet and taking
vitamin supplements. She loved chocolate and enjoyed a glass
or two of her favourite Scotch every evening, her son said.
ELIZABETH HOLBROOK
Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook was born on Nov. 7, 1913, in
Hamilton. She died on Feb. 23, 2009, in Hamilton. She was
95. She leaves her children, David and Jane, her
grandchildren, Christopher, Susan and Andrew, and her
brother, Jack Bradford. She was predeceased by her son,
William, in 1960, and by her husband, John, in 1998. The
Canadian Portrait Academy will hold an exhibition of Ms.
Holbrook's work at the Bay of Islands Bistro in Corner Brook
from Nov. 12 to 22.