Stanhope Forbes - part 4

Stanhope Forbes 1934
© National Portrait Gallery, London

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 -3 also also.

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

n.d. A Ferryman at Flushing
oil on canvas 29 x 23 cm
National Trust, Standen, UK

n.d. A Venetian Backwater
oil on canvas 61 x 50.8 cm

n.d. A Venetian Gateway
oil on canvas 63.5 x 50.8 cm

n.d. Against Regatta Day
oil on canvas 141 x 194 cm
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, UK

n.d. Becalmed
oil on canvas 25.4 x  35.5 cm
Private Collection

n.d. Blackberry Pickers
oil on canvas 51.5 x 76.5 cm

n.d. Boats at Anchor
oil on canvas 61 x 76.9 cm
Private Collection

n.d. Boy on a Beach
oil on panel 24.1 x 15.3 cm

n.d. Cattle Drover
study
oil on canvas 26 x 22 cm

n.d. Chateaudun
oil on canvas laid down on board 34.5 x 52.2 cm

n.d. Children on the Beach, Cancale
oil on canvas 45 x 33 cm

n.d. Contemplation
oil on canvas 97.8 x 78.7 cm
Private Collection

n.d. Corner of a Workshop
study (attributed to Forbes)
oil on canvas 41 x 50.5 cm

n.d. Corner of Old Newlyn
(attributed to Forbes)
oil on canvas 35.5 x 25 cm

n.d. Desirée at the Piano
oil on canvas 46.4 x 31.8 cm

n.d. Dr Cecil Francis Watts
oil on canvas 76.4 x 61 cm
Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, UK

n.d. Exterior of a Cottage with Gates
oil on canvas 24 x 33.5 cm

n.d. Forging Steel
oil on canvas 75 x 101 cm

n.d. Girls at the Quayside
oil on canvas 51 x 41 cm

n.d. Study of a Woman Seated on a Harbour Wall
oil on canvas 100.4 x 74.3 cm

n.d. Woman Seated on a Harbour Wall, Cornwall
watercolour over pencil 11.5 x 15 cm

n.d. Henry Vigurs Harris
oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm
The Box, Plymouth Musems Galleroes Archives, UK

n.d. Head and Shoulder Portrait of the Artist's Son, Alec
watercolour on paper 16.5 x 11 cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

n.d. Going to School
(details not found)

n.d. The Eye of the Needle
(attributed to Stanhope Forbes)
oil on panel 40 x 33 cm

n.d. The Duck Pond
oil on canvas 58.4 x 48.3 cm

n.d. The Café
oil on canvasboard 28 x 36 cm

n.d. The Blue River
oil on canvas 56.9 x 76.2 cm

n.d. The Artist in his Studio
oil on canvas 21 x 31 cm
Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, UK

n.d. Summer Afternoon
study
oil on canvas 34.3 x 29.2 cm

n.d. Study of a Young Man
oil on canvas laid down on board 36 x 28 cm

n.d. Still Waters
oil on canvas 60.5 x 76 cm
Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Wales, UK

n.d. Son of the Sea
oil on canvas 119 x 95 cm

n.d. Sketch of a Farm Girl with Sieve
oil on canvas 33.6 x 24.2 cm

n.d. Preparations for Market, Quimperlé, Brittany
oil on canvas 168.9 x 134 cm

n.d. Portrait of Mrs. Brayshaw of Stackhouse
oil on canvas 76.2 x 63.5 cm

n.d. Penlee Quarry
oil on canvas 46 x 64 cm

n.d. Newlyn, Cornwall, Trewarveneth Street
oil on canvas 45.7 x 35.6 cm

n.d. Newlyn Harbour
oil on canvas 37.5 x 52.7 cm

n.d. The Farmer's Wife
oil on canvas 46.3 x 36 cm

n.d. The Fishers
oil on canvas 26.6 x 36.8 cm
Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, UK

n.d. The Lighthouse (Newlyn, Cornwall)
oil on canvas 228.5 x 173.2 cm
Manchester Art Gallery, UK

n.d. The Picture Book
(details not found)

n.d. The Pond
oil on canvas 49 x 61.5 cm
Newport Museum and Art Gallery, South Wales, UK

n.d. The Post Office, Newlyn
oil on canvas 51.1 x 61.6 cm

n.d. The Violinist
(Walter Barnes, the Conductor of the
Penzance Orchestral Society)
oil on canvas 92 x 71.5 cm
Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

n.d. The Violinist
oil on canvas 85 x 92.8 cm

n.d. Two Women Mending Nets
study
oil on canvas 41 x 23 cm

n.d. Untitled (Figure on Newlyn Slip)
oil on canvas 27.9 x 18.4 cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK

n.d. William Livingstone Watson of Ayton
oil on canvas 124.4 x 100.3 cm
Perth & Kinross Council, UK

n.d. Young Apprentice (Newlyn Copperworks)
oil on canvas 76.5 x 61.5 cm
Penlee House Gallery Museum, Penzance, Cornwall, UK