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 Self Portrait of Stanhope Alexander Forbes 1889 |
Stanhope Forbes was born in Dublin, the son of a railway manager and his French wife. He attended the Royal Academy Schools in London from 1876, and in 1880 went to study at Bonnat’s studio in Paris. |
| In 1881, Forbes went to Brittany with fellow artist La Thangue. His time in France brought him into contact with the new ‘plein air’ painters, which was to influence his style dramatically. He arrived in Newlyn in 1884 and soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists. | |
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Penlee House Gallery
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His national reputation was established with the acceptance of his Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach in 1885 at the Royal Academy, London (now in Plymouth City Art Gallery) and the purchase of The Health of the Bride in 1889 by Henry Tate, now in the Tate Britain, London. |
| As the number of artists in Newlyn
dwindled, Stanhope and his wife Elizabeth Forbes founded their School
of Painting in 1899. This was to attract a whole new generation of artists
to the area, including Ernest Procter and his future wife Doris ‘Dod’
Shaw.
Throughout his life, Forbes was a familiar and popular figure in West Cornwall. Well into the 1930s, he was still often to be seen painting ‘en plein air’, surrounded by curious local children. He died in 1947, a few months short of his ninetieth birthday. Unfortunately, at present Penlee House has few paintings by Stanhope
Forbes in its own collections, and none of his key works. We do,
however, borrow examples of his major paintings, from private and public
collections, from time to time for temporary exhibitions and are
actively seeking to acquire such a work for our collections. | |
