Elizabeth Forbes

Elizabeth Adela Forbes (née Armstrong; 29 December 1859 – 16 March 1912) was a Canadian painter who was primarily active in the UK. She often featured children in her paintings and School Is Out (painted in Newlyn) is one of her most popular works. She was friends with the artists James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Walter Sickert, both of whom influenced her work. Her etchings in particular are said to show the influence of Whistler.

After studying and working in continental Europe, Forbes settled in Newlyn, England, where she raised her son and established a school with her husband, Stanhope Forbes. She had her works exhibited in notable shows and won medals for her works. Her paintings are in collections of museums in Canada, United States and England.

Personal life Armstrong was born 29 December 1859 in Kingston, Canada West. She was the youngest child of William Armstrong, an employee of the government of the United Province of Canada. Born in her father's old age, she was educated privately in Canada and then allowed to further her artistic studies in England with her mother as chaperone. Her father died two months later, after which she and her mother lived with an uncle in Chelsea, London. They lived next door to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but she never met him. In 1904, she and her husband settled at Higher Faugan, a house which they designed and had built for themselves.

In 1909, she pursued cures and restorative periods for cancer in France and London, Elizabeth Armstrong, later Forbes, traveled with her mother to England and studied at the South Kensington Art School (now the Royal College of Art).

Career

Early career and further education In 1882, she explored plein air painting at the artists' colony at Pont-Aven in Brittany.

She worked in oil, watercolour and pastels and made etchings

Cornwall In the autumn of 1885, Armstrong and her mother moved to Newlyn, Cornwall. She established a studio in Newlyn, sharing the building with a fisherman who stored and repaired nets in the space. She won a medal at the Paris International Exhibition in 1891 and a gold medal for an oil painting at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Forbes held an exhibition called Children and Child Lore in London at the Fine Art Society in 1900. The main character based upon her friend Thomas Cooper Gotch, Forbes wrote and illustrated King Arthur's Wood, a children's book for her son that was published in 1904. She founded The Paper Chase, edited by her friend F. Tennyson Jesse in 1908, and wrote poetry.

A Dream Princess, 1897, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro An Old Dame of Pont Aven, drypoint etching, example at Penlee Museum and the British Museum A Newlyn Maid, oil on canvas, Penlee Museum Boys with a Barrow, drypoint etching, example at Penlee Museum Girl Peeling Onions, drypoint etching, example at Penlee Museum and the British Museum Girl Peeling Onions, oil on canvas, Penlee Museum Portrait of Cicely Jesse, charcoal, Penlee Museum Portrait of the Artist, drypoint etching, example at Penlee Museum School Is Out, 1889, oil on canvas, Penlee Museum The Cornish Pasty, drypoint etching, example at Penlee Museum The Critics, 1886 or 1887 The Minuet, oil on canvas, Penlee Museum The Pied Piper, mixed media on paper, Penlee Museum Zandvoort Fishergirl, 1884, oil on canvas, Penlee Museum, on loan from Newlyn Art Gallery

School Is Out and Zandvoort Fishergirl were two of her best known paintings.

Gallery