Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook

Holbrook died of natural causes in Hamilton on February 23, 2009. She is buried at St. John’s Anglican Church, Ancaster, Ontario alongside her husband “Jack” Holbrook and her son William “Billy” Holbrook. The family is interred next to a liturgical headstone designed by Holbrook.

In 1996 she completed a sculpture of George Bernard Shaw for the then-new plaza in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Her last commissioned sculptures were of Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel created in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

Holbrook’s subjects included HM Queen Elizabeth II; William Osler; Ellen Fairclough; John Diefenbaker; Emanuel Hahn; Henry Moore; among many others. Her works include the bronze 24′ standing figure of a Royal Military College of Canada cadet 1979 (later known as ‘Brucie’), which was a gift of the Royal Military College Club. She also produced a bronze bust of Colonel George Stanley, a former Royal Military College professor, who designed the Canadian Flag. For the Federal Building, Hamilton, Ontario, she completed eight large mezzo relief stone panels depicting wildlife and industry.

She was a lecturer in Sculpture at the Dundas Valley School of Art from 1965 to 1969., at the Burlington Cultural Centre from 1990-1993 and at McMaster University, Faculty of Arts in Hamilton, Ontario from 1995-1999. Holbrook’s portrait sculptures are represented in over 50 public collections worldwide.

Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook, CM, O.Ont (7 November 1913 – 23 February 2009) was a Canadian portrait sculptor, medal designer and liturgical artist.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, on November 7, 1913, Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook was the great-great-granddaughter of the Hon. John Willson, the first speaker for the House in Upper Canada. Holbrook studied at the Hamilton Art School (1928–31), Ontario College of Art (1932-35), Royal College of Art in London, England (1936) and at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1948). She studied with such artists as Hortense Gordon, John S. Gordon, John Sloan, Gustav Hahn, Emanuel Hahn, Rowley Murphy, and Carl Milles.