(b Dublin, 18 Nov 1857; d Newlyn, Cornwall, 2 March 1947). He studied in London at the Lambeth School of Art (1874–6) and then at the Royal Academy Schools (1876–8). After this he studied under Léon Bonnat in Paris for two years and was much influenced by the rustic Realism of Jean-François Millet and Jules Bastien-Lepage. His early pictures, which he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1878, are strongly French in style and are mostly scenes of peasant life in the Bastien-Lepage idiom. In 1881 he painted in Brittany with his friend Henry Herbert La Thangue, and in 1884 he and a group of artist friends ‘discovered’ the Cornish fishing village of Newlyn. Forbes settled there for the rest of his life, and he is generally regarded as the ‘father’ of the Newlyn school, although he was not the first to discover the village. In 1885 he exhibited Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach (1885; Plymouth, City Mus. & A.G.; see fig.) at the Royal Academy. The picture was much admired and helped to arouse critical interest in the Newlyn group of painters. Forbes was also one of the founder-members of the New English Art Club in 1886. For a time he exhibited there but later turned against it, mainly because of his dislike of Walter Richard Sickert and his ‘low life’ followers. Forbes remained faithful to the Royal Academy, becoming an ARA in 1892 and an RA in 1910. He also remained faithful to Newlyn and to such scenes of village life as the Village Philharmonic (1888; Birmingham, Mus. & A.G.) and, probably his most famous picture, the Health of the Bride (1889; London, Tate). The latter was painted in the same year as his marriage to Elizabeth Armstrong (see (2) below). By this time Forbes was developing a distinctively English style of his own and had successfully absorbed the French influences of his youth. He continued to paint the same kind of subjects for the rest of his life, as in the Drinking Place (1900; Oldham, A.G.). In his later work his technique became bolder and his colours lighter, as in The Pond (1930, Newport, Gwent, Mus. & A.G.).

Part of the Forbes family

• Forbes, Stanhope (Alexander)
  • education (art)
    • Newlyn school
  • groups and movements
    • Bell, George
    • New English Art Club
  • patrons and collectors
    • Tate, Henry
  • works
    • Frame, §IV, 10: Britain: Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic Movement
    • Marine painting, §2(ii): Subsequent development: Britain