Stanhope Forbes - part 3

Stanhope Forbes
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library

Stanhope Alexander Forbes is regarded as the founder and leader of the Newlyn School. He settled in Newlyn in 1884 and stayed for the rest of his life. Norman Garstin, in an article on Stanhope Forbes, wrote that ‘no one has done so much to hold the little community of Newlyn together as Mr. Stanhope Forbes’. 

Forbes was born in Dublin. His father was the manager of the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland; his mother was French and had much influence over his life. Stanhope was sent to Dulwich College and in 1876 to the Royal Academy Schools. In 1880 he visited Paris and attended Bonnat’s studio and, in 1881, he visited Brittany where he was to paint extensively over the next few years in the ‘plein air’ style. Forbes was greatly influenced by the work of the French artist, Bastien Lepage, and his earlier works display the solid, tonal values of pre-impressionist painting.In January 1884, Forbes took the train from London to Falmouth in search of fresh inspiration and gradually found his way to Newlyn.

He was by no means the first artist to settle there; Langley, Gotch and Todd were already well established. It was, however, largely the repeated success of Forbes’ work at the Royal Academy in the later 1880s, and, in particular his most successful painting “Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach” (1885), that established the reputation of the Newlyn School outside Cornwall.

In 1899, he founded a painting school in Newlyn with Elizabeth Forbes, his wife, ‘for the student who wishes to learn how seriously to study painting and drawing according to the recent development in English art’. The school’s formation marked the beginning of a new era in the artistic life of Newlyn while its students formed the nucleus of the second generation of Newlyn painters.Works can be found at The Tate, London; Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance and at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro.

For more biographical notes see part 1. For earlier works see parts 1 & 2 also also.

This is part 3 of a 4-part series on the works of Stanhope Forbes:

1920 Saffron Cake 
oil on canvas 76.2 x 101.6 cm

1920 The Fruit Seller
oil on canvas 50.8 x 66 cm

1921 An Old Quarter of Penzance
oil on canvas 61.5 x 51 cm

1921 Feeding the Pigs
oil on canvas 140 x 99 cm
University of Exeter, UK

1921 Market Place
oil on canvas 91 x 73 cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

1921 Nightshift on the Embankment
oil on canvas 70 x 88 cm

1921 The Inner Harbour – Abbey Slip
oil on canvas 76.2 x 101.6 cm
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

The Inner Harbour – Abbey Slip
contemporary view

1921 The Short Cut across the Fields
oil on canvas 77.4 x 127 cm
Private Collection

1922 On Paul Hill
oil on canvas 89 x 119 cm
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

1922 The Old Weighing House, Penzance
oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm

1923 Figures in an Italian Courtyard, Outside the Studio of Luigi Tolomeo
oil on canvas 56 x 67 cm

1923 Florist and Fruiterer
oil on canvas 51 x 61 cm

1923 Percy Sharman
oil on canvas 60 x 50 cm
The University of Reading, Berkshire, UK

1923 Portrait of a Gentleman in Italian Military Uniform
oil on canvas 48.3 x 30.7 cm

1923 The Fishermen's Expedition
oil on canvas 61 x 77.5 cm
Private Collection

1924 LMS Railway Poster
"The Permanent Way - Relaying"

1924 The Sidings
oil on canvas 46 x 61 cm
Note: The LMS poster above appears to be based on this view

1924 Penzance from Newlyn
oil on canvas 31 x 46 cm

1925 On the Bridge
oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm
Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, UK

1925 Street Corner, Cahors (France)
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm
Private Collection

1925 The Terminus, Penzance Station, Cornwall
oil on canvas 111 x 137 cm
National Railway Museum, York, UK

1926 The Young Pianist
oil on canvasboard 44 x 32.5 cm

1927 The Old Bridge of Relubbus
oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm
Private Collection

1927 Through the Marshes
oil on canvas 64.8 x 74.8 cm
National Railway Museum, York, UK

1928-30 Relubbus Bridge
oil on canvas 51 x 76 cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

1929 Relubbus Bridge
oil on canvas 60.5 x 75cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

1929 Mr Spargo and Jack the Horse
oil study

1930 The Artist's Garden
oil on canvas 21 x 28 cm

1930 Young Anglers at Hayle
oil on canvas 50 x 62 cm

1931 A Country Lane (Woodgatherers)
oil on canvas 77 x 61 cm

1933 Portrait of an Artist, William Pascoe
oil on canvas 61.3 x 51.5 cm
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

1935 An Old Cornish Manor
oil on canvas 61.5 x 76.8 cm

1935 The End of the Day's Work
oil on canvas 62 x 76.5 cm

1937 Evening on the Bridge
oil on canvas 61 x 76 cm
Private Collection

1937 Fading Leaf and Fallen Tree
oil on canvas 60 x 74 cm
Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, UK

1937 Farmyard
oil on canvas 76.5 x 61 cm
Manchester Art Gallery, UK

1937 The White Gate
oil on canvas 51.1 x 64 cm

1937 The Woolpack at Yalding (Kent)
oil on canvas 55.7 x 76.3 cm

1937 The Woolpack at Yalding
contemporary view

1938 Village Rendezvous, Copperhouse Creek, near Hayle
oil on canvas 62 x 78 cm
The Box, Plymouth Museums Galleries Archive, UK

1939 An Old Quarter of Penzance
oil on canvas 51.2 x 64 cm

1939 The Pigeon Loft
oil on canvas 60 x 76 cm

c1939 The Fountain Tavern
oil on canvas 35.6 x 47 cm

1940 The Potting Shed
oil on canvas 64 x 51 cm

1943 Causewayhead, Penzance
oil on canvas 77 x 61 cm

Causewayhead, Penzance
contemporary view

1944 James Jewill Hill
oil on canvas 91 x 71.5 cm
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

1944 Off to Lunch
oil
(details not found)

n.d. A Cornish Farm
oil on canvas 76.2 x 61 cm

n.d. A Dutch River in Summer
oil on panel 20 x 29.5 cm