1951 Fredericton Encaenia
Humphrey, Jack Weldon
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: Jack Weldon Humphrey, Richard Law, Frank Ernest Gannett, William Josiah Wright
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Source: unprocessed
Citation:
ENCAENIA, MAY, 1951
JACK WELDON HUMPHREY
to be Doctor of Laws
It is a task as welcome as it is infrequent to present for the honour of a University degree a man whose only wealth is his integrity and whose only instruments are his brush, his palette, and his violin-bow.
Jack Weldon Humphrey was born in Saint John; and in Saint John he has lived, struggled, fiddled -- and painted. He has lived there because he loves it as he loves his violin. He has struggled there because, like the prophet in his own country, he was destined there last of all to win the honour that other parts had already accorded him.
And there he has painted; and in his paintings he has ruthlessly and without fear put on canvas those images, beautiful and sordid, grim and smiling, human, and often inhuman, which at every turn challenged his objective gaze. They were images which no receptive artist could stifle, and only a dishonest one would idealize.
He has, in fact, become -- to one critic at least -- the living and the avenging spirit of that gaunt, rockbound, ugly, and very adorable old city.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
JACK WELDON HUMPHREY
to be Doctor of Laws
It is a task as welcome as it is infrequent to present for the honour of a University degree a man whose only wealth is his integrity and whose only instruments are his brush, his palette, and his violin-bow.
Jack Weldon Humphrey was born in Saint John; and in Saint John he has lived, struggled, fiddled -- and painted. He has lived there because he loves it as he loves his violin. He has struggled there because, like the prophet in his own country, he was destined there last of all to win the honour that other parts had already accorded him.
And there he has painted; and in his paintings he has ruthlessly and without fear put on canvas those images, beautiful and sordid, grim and smiling, human, and often inhuman, which at every turn challenged his objective gaze. They were images which no receptive artist could stifle, and only a dishonest one would idealize.
He has, in fact, become -- to one critic at least -- the living and the avenging spirit of that gaunt, rockbound, ugly, and very adorable old city.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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