Stanhope Forbes

thumb|The Munitions Girls, 1918

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

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, Sir William Forbes, who was a railway manager for the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.

thumb|Portrait of Forbes by his wife, Elizabeth Adèla Forbes (née Armstrong)

thumb|Forbes' portrait of his son Alec, who died in the First World War

thumb|Grave of Forbes and his wife in Sancreed churchyard

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. They had a son named Alexander (usually known as Alec), born 26 May 1893. The couple had a home built for the family in Higher Faughan, Penzance. Elizabeth died in 1912. He is buried in Guillemont Road Cemetery where his headstone bears an inscription composed by his father: HE SAW BEYOND THE FILTH OF BATTLE, AND THOUGHT DEATH A FAIR PRICE TO PAY TO BELONG TO THE COMPANY OF THESE FELLOWS. Stanhope Forbes also sculpted and erected a memorial to his son in their local parish church with the inscription: "I will get me out of my COUNTRY & from my KINDRED & from my FATHER'S house unto a LAND that GOD will shew me".

Forbes died in Newlyn on 2 March 1947 at the age of 89.

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, 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.

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. In 1881 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.

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A painting made there, A Street in Brittany, was shown and well received at the 1882 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and sold later that year to the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. During an 1883 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.

Other artists who were painting in Brittany at the time and who Forbes may have met, were Norman Garstin, Nathaniel Hill, Joseph Malachy Kavanagh and Walter Osborne.</blockquote>

The Slip was Forbes' first painting made in Newlyn. 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. In Newlyn, Forbes tutored the landscape watercolourist Mabel Mary Spanton.

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

In 1910 Forbes was elected a Royal Academician. Forbes became a member of the St Ives Society of Artists in 1928.

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

A Street in Brittany, 1881, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Study of a Fisherwoman, 1884, oil on canvas, Penlee House
A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1884–85, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
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
The Quarry Team, 1894, oil on canvas
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 (Australia) (purchased 1912)
Penolva, 1913, oil on canvas, Penlee House
Second Lieutenant Alec Forbes (1893–1916) 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 Drinking Place, oil on canvas, Gallery Oldham
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, Gallery Oldham, Queen Mary's Doll's House at Windsor Castle and in other museums in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.