“Molly Lamb Bobak is well known for her interior scenes and still-life paintings, which fascinate me the most within her body of work. The distortions in her painting Still Life Revisited, as well as the colours and motifs in Interior with Moroccan Carpet, were hugely inspiring to me in the creation of my work. Bobak’s distortions equally evoke the work of Paul Cézanne, who has always been a big source of inspiration for me. Le rassemblement represents the simplicity of daily routine that has always captivated me, particularly meal times. They demand to be observed and listened to, and I wanted to reflect the way in which food has the potential to assemble a group of people. Whether in the military in London during the Second World War, or in her role as the first Canadian woman to be appointed an official war artist, Bobak inspires me enormously as an artist and a person.”
—Maya Padlewska (Grade 12, École secondaire publique De La Salle, Ottawa, Ontario)

Though Vancouver-born Molly Lamb Bobak (1920–2014) was the first Canadian woman appointed as an official war artist, she is revered as a painter of modern life, producing vibrant cityscapes, scenes of domestic interiors, and still-life paintings of flowers with an instinctive use of colour.