Bobak, Bruno, 1923-2012 : Bruno Bobak was born in Poland in 1923 but came to Canada in 1925 with his parents, who settled initially in Saskatchewan and then in Hamilton, Ontario. He studied art at the age of thirteen under Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Toronto and then under Carl Schaefer and Charles Goldhamer at the Central Technical School, Toronto. He enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1943 and was appointed an official war artist in 1944, serving in Europe with the Fourth Canadian Armoured Division. He married fellow war artist Molly Lamb in 1945.
After the war, Bruno Bobak worked as a designer for the Canadian Government Exhibition Commission in Ottawa and then moved to British Columbia where he became head of the Design Department at the Vancouver School of Art. In 1957, he was awarded a Canadian Government Overseas Senior Fellowship and went to Europe to study and paint. In 1960, Bruno Bobak was offered a post as artist-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick, and Fredericton became the Bobaks' home. Soon after, in 1962, he became Director of the University of New Brunswick's Art Centre.
Bruno Bobak has been a member of the British Columbia Society of Artists, Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, Canadian Group of Painters, Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art 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. He is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Musée des Beaux-Arts, and elsewhere. He has received honorary degrees and other awards in recognition of his contributions to Canadian art.
Hoyt, William L. b. 1930 : The Honourable William Hoyt was born in Saint John, New Brunswick (NB), Canada, in September 1930. He was educated at Woodstock High School NB, Acadia University, Wolfville Nova Scotia (BA, MA), and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England (BA, MA) where he read Law from 1954 to 1956.
Called to the New Brunswick Bar in 1957, he practised as a barrister between 1957 and 1981. He was appointed Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1972.
Mr Hoyt was appointed a judge of the Court of the Queen's Bench of New Brunswick in 1981. From 1984 until 1998 he was a judge of the Court of Appeal of New Brunswick. He was Chief Justice of New Brunswick from 1993 to 1998 and, in that capacity, was a member of the Canadian Judicial Council.
A member of the New Brunswick Judicial Council from 1988 to 1998, Mr Hoyt was its Chairman from 1993. He was Administrator of the Government of New Brunswick from 1994 to 1998. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws (LLD) by St Thomas University, Fredericton NB in 1997, by the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton NB in 1998 and an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law by Acadia University in 2001.
