Phyllis Lambert
Canadian philanthropist and member of the Bronfman family

Phyllis Barbara Lambert (née Bronfman; born January 24, 1927) is a Canadian architect, philanthropist, and member of the Bronfman family.
Life
Born in Montreal, Quebec, she studied at The Study, a premier independent school for girls, and was educated at the liberal arts Vassar College (A.B. in 1948). At the age of nine she was already committed to sculpture and her drawing skills were commented upon as remarkable early on in life. And at eleven she began exhibiting in annual juried exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Société des Sculpteurs du Canada. While reading architecture history in New York she became engaged with the connections of art and architecture which would last a lifetime. Her family is of Jewish background.
On 17 May 1949, in Montreal, she married Jean Lambert, a French-German economic consultant and the only son of Adolphe Lambert of Elmhurst, Queens, New York. The couple divorced in 1954. After the divorce she decided to remain in Paris, living and working alone in a studio on her art and sculpting.
In 1951 Lambert's father Samuel Bronfman established Cemp Investments, a holding company for his four children, in which Phyllis was given a 22% ownership stake.
“Phyllis Lambert” enters the record as canadian philanthropist and member of the Bronfman family. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Phyllis, Lambert and Canadian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Phyllis Lambert” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Phyllis, Lambert and Canadian provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3381859. VIAF identifies the subject as 95893621. The Library of Congress control number is n79068762. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1948, 1949 and 1954.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Phyllis Lambert”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Phyllis Lambert primary sources, Phyllis Lambert archive and Phyllis research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Phyllis Lambert”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Phyllis Lambert” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.