Stanhope Forbes RA

Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) was a painter of landscapes and realistic scenes, frequently painted in the open air, and he was the most famous artist to come to paint in Newlyn. He was born in Ireland and had studied in London at the Royal Academy Schools before travelling to France to study at Leo Bonnat’s atelier. He was a great admirer of Bastien Lepage’s ethos of painting outdoors, and he was ambitious and daring with his compositions, frequently making his paintings focus on the centre of the action.

Forbes arrived in Newlyn in 1884. He soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists, and his reputation was established by the acceptance of ‘A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach’ at the Royal Academy in 1885.

As the number of artists in Newlyn decreased, he and his wife Elizabeth founded a School of Painting at Anchor Studio in 1899. This attracted a new generation of artists to Newlyn, including Ernest Proctor and his future wife, Dod, Frank Heath, and Eleanor and Robert Morson Hughes. Following Elizabeth’s death in 1912, Forbes married a former student Maudie, who had been assistant, helper and friend to the whole Forbes family.

John Wells came to Cornwall in 1928 to study with Stanhope Forbes, and Wells was later to buy Anchor Studios after Forbes’ death.