Stanhope Forbes

Stanhope Alexander Forbes RA (18 November 1857 – 2 March 1947), was an artist and a founding member of the influential Newlyn school of painters. He was often called 'the father of the Newlyn School'.[2]

Personal life

Forbes was born in Dublin, the son of Juliette de Guise Forbes, a French woman, and William Forbes, an English railway manager, who was later transferred to London. He had an older brother named William, who, like his father, was a railway manager; William worked for the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.[3][4]

He was married in the summer of 1889 to fellow painter Elizabeth Armstrong at Newlyn's St Peter's Church. Their first home was at the "Cliffs Castle" cottage, which overlooked the sea.[5] They had a son named Alexander, nicknamed Alec. The couple had a home built for the family in Higher Faughan, Penzance. Elizabeth died in 1912.[3][6]

In 1915, Forbes remarried friend and previous student Maudie Palmer, who had been "assistant, helper and friend to the whole Forbes family." During the First World War Forbes' son Alec served under the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. Alec died on the battlefield in August, 1916.[3][7]

Forbes died in Newlyn on 2 March 1947 at the age of 89.[3] He was buried in the churchyard of Sancreed Parish Church.

Education

Schooled at Dulwich College, he studied art under John Sparkes who later taught at South Kensington School of Art. His father then worked for the Luxembourg Railway and after a period of poor health Forbes was removed from Dulwich College and studied under private teachers in Brussels. This also afforded additional time to draw. After the end of the Franco-Prussian War, the Forbes returned to London. Dulwich College professor John Sparkes helped influence William Forbes of his son's artistic talent, Stanhope Forbes then attended Lambeth School of Art (now the City & Guilds of London Art School). By 1878 he attended the Royal Academy under Sir Frederic Leighton and Sir John Millais. Fellow students at the academy included Arthur Hacker, Henry Herbert La Thangue and Solomon J. Solomon. He participated in his first exhibition there.[3][8]

Forbes returned to Ireland for a few months to visit Dr. Andrew Melville, family friend and Queen's College professor. While there the men shared their appreciation of art and Forbes painted landscapes of the Galway area. He also received his first commission for a portrait. Back in London and at the age of 18, he received another commission for a portrait of a doctor's daughter, Florence. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1879.[6][9]

He then studied at the private atelier of Léon Bonnat in Clichy, Paris from 1880 to 1882. Henry Herbert La Thangue who also attended Dulwich College, Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy came to Paris, too, and studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Arthur Hacker, a friend from the Royal Academy joined Forbes at Bonnat's atelier.[3][10] In 1881[nb 1] Forbes and La Thangue went to Cancale, Brittany and painted en plein air, like Jules Bastien-Lepage, which became a technique that Forbes used throughout his career.[2][6]

Of Brittany, Mrs. Lionel Birch wrote:

In that most beautiful and interesting portion of France, there seemed to be found everything that an artist could desire. Inhabited by a race of a distinct and marked type, wearing still the beautiful national costumes which had been handed down from bygone ages, and retaining the old language of their forefathers, each village followed religiously the old traditions which ordered the fashion of their dress and the conduct of their lives. Here was a country dear to all who love that which is old and quaint, time-honoured, and reminiscent of past ages.[12]

A painting made there, A Street in Brittany, was shown and well received at the 1882 Royal Academy exhibition and sold later that year to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. During an 1883[nb 2] trip to Brittany, Forbes stayed at Quimperlé. His Breton Children in an Orchard - Quimperlé, was shown at the 1884 Royal Hibernian Academy. Two other works were made Fair Measures: a shop in Quimperlé and Preparations for the Market, Quimperlé; They were both shown at the Royal Academy in 1884. True to his degree of satisfaction, the Fair Measures painting was well-received and the Market painting was found to be too blue and shadowless.[6] Since blue was the colour of the Breton costumes, Forbes decided that it might be useful to change locations for a broader range of subjects and colours.[14]
Other artists who were painting in Brittany at the time of his visits, and who Forbes may have met, were Norman Garstin, Nathaniel Hill, Joseph Malachy Kavanagh and Walter Osborne.[6]

Career
Ladies at work at the Newlyn Art School under the direction of Mrs Stanhope Forbes, from "Every Woman's Encyclopaedia", 1910

Having completed his studies in France, Forbes returned to London and showed works he made in Brittany at the 1883 Royal Academy and Royal Hibernian Academy shows.[6] In 1884 he moved to Newlyn in Cornwall, and soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists.[3] Of this place, Forbes said:

I had come from France and, wandering down into Cornwall, came one spring morning along that dusty road by which Newlyn is approached from Penzance. Little did I think that the cluster of grey-roofed houses which I saw before me against the hillside would be my home for many years. What lode-some of artistic metal the place contains I know not; but its effects were strongly felt in the studios of Paris and Antwerp particularly, by a number of young English painters studying there, who just about then, by some common impulse, seemed drawn towards this corner of their native land... There are plenty of names amongst them which are still, and I hope will long by, associated with Newlyn, and the beauty of this fair district, which charmed us from the first, has not lost its power, and holds us still.[15]

The Slip was Forbes first painting made in Newlyn.[16] The artist colony received national attention with the Royal Academy exhibition of Forbes works in 1885. Henry Tate bought The Health of the Bride, which is now at the Tate Gallery in London. The exhibition of A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach also brought notoriety to Forbes and the artist colony.[2] He was one of the founders of the New English Art Club (NEAC) in 1886.[3]

In 1892 Forbes became an Associate of the Royal Academy.[3] Forbes was the founding chairman and trustee of the Newlyn Art Gallery beginning in 1895.[3]

Forbes and his wife founded the Newlyn Art School in 1899. It attracted students such as Ernest and Doris "Dod" Shaw,[2][3] Frank Gascoigne Heath and Jill and Geoffrey Garnier. The Newlyn area had experienced an economic downturn as the result of failing fishing, mining and farming industries. The school helped to bring an economic resurgence to the area by encouraging individuals to vacation in the area and study and practise art.[3]

His friends included Henry Herbert La Thangue, Blandford Fletcher and Charles E. Hannaford, who had also been a student.[1] In Newlyn, Forbes tutored the landscape watercolourist Mabel Mary Spanton.[17]

For a 1909 publish date, Forbes illustrated Mary Russell Mitford's Sketches of English Life and Character.[18] Some of the illustrations were Old Cronies, Bringing Home the Milk, and February Sunshine.[19]

In 1910 Forbes was elected a Royal Academician. Forbes became a member of the St Ives Society of Artists in 1928.[3] In 1933 he was made a Senior Royal Academician.[3]

Works
Portrait of Forbes by his wife, Elizabeth Adèla Forbes (née Armstrong)
Picture of Stanhope Forbes, ca. 1890

Forbes generally painted genre scenes and landscapes en plein air.[3] After a Day's Work, made in 1907, provides a snapshot of life in a small village in Cornwall. In it a man, covered to protect himself from the rain, leads his horse through the wet streets, which bare the light and reflection from light from inside a house. "With superb skill, the soft light is reflected off the rain-soaked road." A girl is held back from crossing the street by her mother until the man and his horse pass by.[6]

Beyond his plein air painting, he also made interior scenes and was adept at capturing the "warm and charming" effects of lighting on a room and the people in it, such as The Lantern, made in 1897.[6] More poignantly, Mrs. Lionel Birch writes of his style and particularly the painting The Health of the Bride: "[The painting depicts the] dominant note of his life's message, his sense of sympathetic humanity. These people in their humble little parlour, are real and living. Intolerant of all shams and false sentiment, the painter has made himself one with the people he depicts; he has understood the humour which lies so close to tears."[20]

Of Forbes's works, Norman Garstin said: "he is a good unsentimental painter, his work has a sense of sincerity that appeals to everyone".[6]

A partial list of his other works includes:[3][6][21]

Study of a Fisherwoman, 1884, oil on canvas, Penlee House
A Street in Newlyn, 1885, oil on canvas, Penlee House
Off to the Fishing Grounds, 1886
Their Evershifting Home, 1886
The Sweet-stuff Shop, 1886
The Village Harmonic, 1888, multiple light sources, exhibited at Royal Academy
Palmistry, 1888, won Calcutta Gold Medal
The Health of the Bride, 1889, purchased by Henry Tate. Made by Forbes with "sympathetic humanity"
By Order of the Court, Fall 1889, 1890 Royal Academy Exhibition, International Exhibition of Berlin Gold Medal
Portrait of Elizabeth Forbes, 1890, oil on canvas, Penlee House. On loan from Newlyn Art Gallery.
Self Portrait, 1890, oil on canvas, Penlee House. On loan from Newlyn Art Gallery.
The 22nd January 1901: Reading the News of Queen Victoria’s Death in a Cornish Cottage, 1901, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
James Jewill Hill, 1904, oil on canvas, Penlee House
Mrs Forbes (the Artist’s Mother), 1910, oil on canvas, Penlee House
The pier head, 1910, oil on canvas, Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria (purchased 1912)[22]
Penolva, 1913, oil on canvas, Penlee House
Second Lieutenant Alec Forbes (d.1916) Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, 1916 Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry Museum
Abbey Slip, 1921, oil on canvas, Penlee House
On Paul Hill, 1922, oil on canvas, Penlee House
Poster for London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company project, 1924
Relubbus Bridge, 1929, oil on canvas, Penlee House
The Red River, 1933, oil on canvas
Robert Cyril Morton Jenkins, 1939, oil on canvas. The piece is a portrait of the then Chief Constable of Penzance Borough Police, Robert Cyril Morton Jenkins
Against Regatta Day, The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Regatta Day, oil on canvas, Penlee House
The Blackberry Pickers, oil on canvas, private collection
The Lighting Up Time, The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
The Seine Boat, The Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
The Violinist (Walter Barnes, Conductor of the Penzance Orchestral Society), oil on canvas, Penlee House
The Young Apprentice (Newlyn Copperworks), oil on canvas, Penlee House
Up Paul Hill, Penlee House
The Great Fire of London 1666, painted 1899, mural at the Royal Exchange, London
Destruction of the Second Royal Exchange in 1838, painted 1899, mural at the Royal Exchange, London

His works are in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Tate Gallery, Imperial War Museum in London, Penlee House, Royal Academy, Queen Mary’s Doll’s House at Windsor Castle and in other museums in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.[3]

The West Cornwall Art Archive, Penzance (WCAA) established the Forbes Reading Room in memory of Elizabeth and Stanhope Forbes. It contains books, files and information about art subjects related to the works of the Forbes and their students.[3]

Exhibitions

Forbes exhibited his work at the following:[3]

During his life

Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA 1912
Dowdeswell's
Manchester’s Royal Institution, 1884+
Newlyn Art Gallery
Nottingham Castle
Royal Academy, 1878+
Royal Society of British Artists
St Ives Society of Artists
Whitechapel Gallery

Memorial and Posthumous Exhibitions

1949: Newlyn Art Gallery
1979: Artists of the Newlyn School
1981: Forbes Studio Sale, Newlyn Orion Benefit
1985: Painting in Newlyn
1987: Looking West
1988: The Edwardians and After, Royal Academy
1992: Painters from Cornwall, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
1996: Now and Then
2005: Penlee House, Penzance Faces of Cornwall Exhibition (Portraiture)
2013: Two Temple Place, Amongst Heroes: the artist in working Cornwall
2015: Stanhope Forbes’ England, Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
2017: Stanhope Forbes: Father of the Newlyn School, Penlee House, Penzance

Publications

Stanhope Forbes Paperback by Elizabeth Knowles (Author)

Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School Hardcover – August 1, 1993, by Caroline Fox (Author)

Mary Russell Mitford; Stanhope A. Forbes (illus.) Sketches of English Life and Character. Henley-on-Thames: Foulis, 1924
Stanhope A. Forbes. Stanhope A. Forbes the Slip Dublin 1857-1947. Richard Green, 2012. ASIN B009I49W8K

Notes

Mrs. Lionel Birch states that Forbes and La Thangue went to Cancale, Brittany in 1880.[11]

Mrs. Lionel Birch states that Forbes and La Thangue went to Quimperlé, Brittany in 1881 and 1882.[13]

References

Stanhope Forbes. Art Renewal. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
Stanhope Forbes. Penlee House. 6 October 2012.
Stanhope Forbes. Cornwall Artists. 6 October 2012.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 2-4.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 39, 40.
Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) Irish Art. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
Maude C Stanhope Forbes. Cornwall Artists. Retrieved 6 October 2012.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 6, 8, 10-12.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 12-15.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 16, 18, 20.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 21.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 19-20.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 21-23.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 23.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 25-26.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 32.
Who's Who in Art; 3rd ed., 1934
Mitford, Mary Russell Sketches of English Life and Character; with sixteen reproductions from the paintings of Stanhope A. Forbes. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis, 1909.
Mary Russell Mitford. Sketches of English Life and Character. A. C. McClurg & Co.; 1910. (U.S. edition)
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. p. 37.
Mrs. Lionel Birch. Stanhope A. Forbes, A. R. A., and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, A. R. W. S.. Cassell, limited; 1906. pp. 35-37, 39.

Bronwyn Watson, "public works", Weekend Australian, 23-24 January 2016, Review, p. 10