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The Farmer's Family (detail), 1970, Bruno Bobak

Masterpieces of Canadian Art

Stamp Info

Name Value
Date of Issue September 8, 1998
Year 1998
Quantity 7,000,000
Denomination
90¢
Perforation or Dimension 12.5 x 13
Series Masterpieces of Canadian Art
Series Time Span 1988 - 2002
Printer Gravure Choquet Inc..
Postal Administration Canada

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Stamp Price Values

Condition Name Avg Value
M-NH-VF
Mint - Never Hinged - Very Fine Only available to paid users
U-VF
Used - Very Fine Only available to paid users
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Layouts

Pane of 16 Stamps

Quantity Produced - 437,500
Current Purchase Price: Only available to paid users
Original Purchase Price: $14.40
Perforation: 12.5 x 13
Printing Process: Lithography
Gum Type: PVA
Paper: Tullis Russell
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Official First Day Cover

Quantity Produced - Unknown
Current Purchase Price: Only available to paid users
Cancellation Location: Fredericton NB
Perforation: 12.5 x 13
Printing Process: Lithography
Gum Type: PVA
Paper: Tullis Russell
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About Stamp

Continuing the celebrated stamp series begun a decade ago, Canada Post is thrilled to release the 1998 Masterpieces of Canadian Art issue. Featuring Bruno Bobak's 1970 oil painting "The Farmer's Family", this international-rate stamp captures the affection and strength of the rural Canadian family. The Farmer's Family is the centre panel of an expressionist triptych created by Bobak. It presents a farmer and his wife in a warm embrace. In the full triptych, this portrait is juxtaposed against an initial image of the farmer with his hogs, and a third portrait of the farmer's children.

Polish-born, Bobak immigrated to Canada early in life and became fascinated with Canadian rural life. "It was so foreign to the urban lifestyle I grew up with and yet it was so complete: a self-contained world of survival, unity and tenderness", he said. "Bobak's work is not an illustration of an actual event or an actual place, but a symbol of survival in a cold and rugged country", says Curtis J. Collins, curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick where the painting now hangs.

Bruno Bobak came to Canada, to Saskatchewan, in 1925. He soon moved to Hamilton, Ontario and eventually settled in Toronto in 1935. He enrolled in Saturday morning classes at the Art Gallery of Toronto where he studied under Group-of-Seven artist Arthur Lismer. Following high school, Bobak enlisted in the army and, after winning first prize in Canadian Army Art Competition, was named as an Official War Artist. After military service in Europe, he married fellow war artist Molly Lamb and in 1947 took up duties as an instructor at the Vancouver School of Art. Bobak was later appointed Director of the University of New Brunswick's Art Centre. Still active today in his adopted maritime province, this recipient of the Order of Canada has contributed his talents to fundraising programs such as the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Ducks Unlimited, The Glenbow Museum, St. Francis Xavier University and the University of New Brunswick's Faculty of Law.

While the first five stamps in the Masterpieces series appeared framed in silver foil and the subsequent five in gold, this eleventh instalment appears framed in platinum. Designed by Pierre-Yves Pelletier, the Bobak stamp will be issued September 8 in Fredericton, New Brunswick.

Creators

Designed by Pierre-Yves Pelletier. Based on a painting by Brunislaw Jacob Bobak.

Original Artwork

Brunislaw Jacob Bobak, "The Farmer's Family", 1970 Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Similar Stamps

Reference

Canada Post Corporation, Canada's Stamp Details, Vol. 7, No. 5, 1998, p. 5-7.

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