Title and statement of responsibility area
Title proper
Robert Bruce fonds
General material designation
- Graphic material
- Textual record
Parallel title
Other title information
Title statements of responsibility
Title notes
Level of description
Fonds
Reference code
Edition area
Edition statement
Edition statement of responsibility
Class of material specific details area
Statement of scale (cartographic)
Statement of projection (cartographic)
Statement of coordinates (cartographic)
Statement of scale (architectural)
Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)
Dates of creation area
Date(s)
Physical description area
Physical description
1.63 m of textual records and graphic material.
Publisher's series area
Title proper of publisher's series
Parallel titles of publisher's series
Other title information of publisher's series
Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series
Numbering within publisher's series
Note on publisher's series
Archival description area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Robert Bruce was an artist and a professor at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. Bruce worked with a variety of styles and mediums, such as, drawing, painting, printing and murals. He dealt with diverse subject matter including the military, landscapes, cityscapes and the human form. His work is distinctive for his use of exaggeration to increase the expressiveness of his subject. Shortly after Bruce’s birth in 1911 in Grandview, Manitoba, his family moved to Winnipeg where he later attended the Winnipeg School of Art under L.L. FitzGerald. From 1929 to 1933 he worked as an illustrator for the T. Eaton Company display department. In 1935 he moved to England where he enrolled in the Central School of Art in London where he pursued lithography and depicted scenes of street life and sporting activity. In 1938 and 1939, Bruce studied at the Academie Grande Chaumière in Paris and studied painting in Provence and the south of France.
Upon his return to Winnipeg Bruce worked as an illustrator for the Winnipeg Free Press until 1943 when he enlisted in the Canadian Army. During the Second World War Bruce was employed in Portage la Prairie as a public relations staff artist where he designed victory bond advertisements and created award winning illustrations of Army life, some of which were showcased in an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and toured across North America. After being discharged from the Army in 1946, Bruce studied at the Art Students’ League in New York, where he met fellow student, lifelong friend and future University of Manitoba art professor George Swinton. Starting in New York City, and continuing throughout his career, Bruce worked as a freelance illustrator for a number of publications including Liberty, Life, Esquire, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Reporter, MacLean’s, and, starting in the mid-1950s, a number of educational books. In 1949 he moved to Angola, New York where he taught at the Albright School of Art at the University of Buffalo.
In 1955, Bruce and his wife Melba Cumberland, along with their children, Katharine and Robert, moved back to Winnipeg where he worked as a disciplined, demanding and unconventional professor until his retirement in 1976. While working as a professor, Bruce continued to create an extensive amount of fine and commercial art, including several large scale public murals. Throughout his life his artistic work, environmental activism and teaching style were celebrated, but also contentious and controversial. After his retirement Bruce divided his time between his cottage on Falcon Lake in Whiteshell Provincial Park and a home near an artists’ enclave in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. In 1980 Bruce died at his home in San Miguel de Allende. In 2004 the Winnipeg Art Gallery showcased a comprehensive exhibit which presented his multi-faceted work as a professor, environmental activist and artist in numerous mediums.
Custodial history
The fonds was donated to University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections by Katharine Bruce and Robert C. Bruce in 2011.
Scope and content
The fonds is divided into five series. They include diaries, personal, drawings, sketchbooks and oversize drawings. The fonds consists of letters, personal records, postcards, photocopies of Bruce’s published artwork, 9 notebooks, 7 photographs, 119 sketchbooks, 183 drawings, 51 prints, 109 oversize drawings and prints, 13 negatives of drawings, 3 slides of paintings, 21 colour reversal film of drawings, 42 photographs of drawings, 53 drawing reproductions, 191 news clippings of drawings, 275 oversize reproductions of drawings, 136 oversize magazine clippings of drawings, and 44 oversize reproductions, clippings and photographs of drawings.
Notes area
Physical condition
Immediate source of acquisition
The fonds were donated by Katharine Bruce and Robert C. Bruce, children of Robert Bruce.
Arrangement
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Location of originals
Availability of other formats
Restrictions on access
Financial records are restricted. Some material is copyrighted.
Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication
Finding aids
Generated finding aid
Associated materials
Accruals
No further accruals are expected.
Alternative identifier(s)
Standard number area
Standard number
Access points
Place access points
Name access points
Genre access points
Control area
Description record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules or conventions
Rules for Archival Description
Status
Final
Level of detail
Partial
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Created 20 September 2011
Language of description
- English