Michael Forster

Michael Forster † was born in Calcutta and spent much of his childhood in Meerut. On his return to England, Forster was educated at Lancing College in Sussex and studied painting at the Central School of Art under Bernard Meninsky and William Roberts. He also spent some time studying at the Académie Colarossi, Paris. It was 1927-8 and, in the hope that the Depression would be less bitter in North America than in England, he arrived in Toronto.

Forster and his wife Adele in Montreal, Nov 24, 1951

The 1938 Surrealist section of the Canadian National Exhibition was to make a deep impact on Forster’s art. He was to take to heart the movement’s emphasis on the unconscious life of the artist in his intuitive, sensual handling of paint. After the war he was on familiar terms with Jean-Paul Riopelle and the Canadian Automatistes, as well as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City, hence his artistic roots lay well outside the scope of any one movement or national school. He was honoured with a one-man show at the Museo Nacional in Mexico City in 1960 before returning to Canada four years later.

It was only after the death of his first wife, Adele, that Forster returned to England. Settling in Treen, Forster’s work flourished, his primary concern as a painter being the transference of the experience of light and the patterns of nature into instinctive abstract forms. Following in the footsteps of Constable, he took great inspiration from the ever-changing light and cloud formations of the sky. Forster went beyond Constable, however, in also studying the patterns of the night sky. In line with the surrealist practices that were current much earlier in his career, he retained a sense of the importance of artistic intuition:

“I try to work in a state of open, receptive, mindlessness; to be alert to every hint, every direction that reveals itself in the course of the work” (MF, c. 1970).

Experimental and fresh in his use of paint and different media to the very end of his life, his landscapes and quasi-abstract works are astonishing in their variety of handling and richness of colour.

The Michael Forster Studio Estate is represented exclusively by Messum's.

Exhibitions

• 1939 New York World's Fair, Canadian Art: Canadian Society of Graphic Art

• 1940 Art Gallery of Ontario, The seventeenth annual exhibition of the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists, and at this exhibition in 1941, 1942, 1944, 1945.

• 1941 Picture Loan Society, Toronto, Paintings and Drawings by Michael Forster; Art Gallery of Toronto, The fourteenth annual exhibition of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, and at this exhibition in 1942, 1944, 1946

• 1942 Art Gallery of Toronto, Canadian Group of Painters; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, The Canadian Society of Graphic Art Travelling Exhibition; Phillips Academy, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass., Aspects of Contemporary Painting in Canada; Hart House, University of Toronto, Jack Nichols and Michael Forster

• 1943 Art Gallery of Ontario, Four Canadian Artists: Edna Taçon, Jessie Flaunt, Michael Forster, Gordon Webber

• 1945 Art Gallery of Toronto, Art Association of Montreal, National Gallery of Canada, Le Musée de la Province de Québec, The Development of Painting in Canada 1665-1945; The National Gallery of Canada, Exhibition of Canadian War Art

• 1946 Biblioteca Publica Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, Artes Grafica do Canada; Gallery of Photographic Stores, Ltd., Ottawa, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Michael Forster; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, Unesco Exhibition of International Art, Canadian Section

• 1947 The Gallery, 73 Albert Street Ottawa, Michael Forster; Eaton’s Fine Art Galleries, Toronto, First Peacetime Exhibition: Official Services Artists

• 1948 Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (organised by National Gallery of Canada), Canadian War Art Exhibition

• 1949 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Forty Years of Canadian Painting from Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven to the present day; Art Gallery of Toronto, Fifty Years of Painting in Canada

• 1950 National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Canadian Painting: An Exhibition arranged by the National Gallery of Canada

• 1951 Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Artist Self-Portraits; Museum of Fine Arts Montreal, Drawings by 12 Montreal Artists; Montreal, Conversation Pieces: Skirts by Michael and Adele Forster

• 1952 National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Paintings and Drawings from the collection of J. S. McLean; Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Louis Muhlstock and Michael Forster; Museum of Fine Arts Montreal, Annual Spring Exhibition; Art Gallery of Toronto, Canadian Group of Painters; Picture Loan Society, Toronto, Paintings by Michael Forster

• 1953 Sao Paolo, Il Bienal do Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paolo, (organised by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)

• 1954 Galeria Proteo, Mexico, Michael Forster

• 1958 Mexico, Primera Bienal Interamericana de Pintura y Grabado (organised by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)

• 1960 Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Mexico, Obras de Michael Forster

• 1963 Picture Loan Society, Toronto, Paintings by Michael Forster

• 1965 Robertson Galleries, Ottawa, Michael Forster, recent paintings; Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Vincent Price Collection

• 1966 Mazelow Gallery, Toronto, Michael Forster Painting Exhibition; Beckett Gallery, Hamilton, Michael Forster

• 1967 Willistead Port Gallery of Windsor, Some Paintings, Drawings and Prints from the Douglas Duncan Collection

• 1969 Robertson Galleries, Ottawa, Paintings by Michael Forster

• 1970 C. Gutenberg Gallery, Toronto, Michael Forster: Retrospective Exhibition; Hemingway Galleries, Jamestown, New York, Paintings and Drawings by Michael Forster in a Retrospective Exhibit

• 1971 The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Gift from the Douglas M. Duncan Collection and the Milne-Duncan Bequest

• 1972 Damkjar-Burton Gallery, Hamilton, Michael Forster

• 1973 Gairloch Gallery, Oakville, An exhibition of abstract paintings from the works of Michael Forster; Thielson Gallery, London, Ontario, Michael Forster

• 1974 Upper Street Gallery, London, Michael Forster; Damkjar-Burton Gallery, Hamilton, Michael Forster

• 1975 Damkjar-Burton Gallery, Hamilton, Rites of Passage

• 1977 Damkjar-Burton Gallery, Hamilton, Michael Forster, Acrylics on Paper

• 1979 Penwith Galleries, Cornwall, Penwith Galleries Associates Exhibition; Newlyn Society of Artists, Newlyn Orion Galleries, Cornwall, Associate Exhibition. (Forster participated in the Spring and Summer exhibitions of the Newlyn Society of Artists until 1986); Penwith Society of Arts and Penwith Galleries Ltd., Cornwall, Spring Exhibition

• 1981 Newlyn Orion Galleries, Cornwall, Paintings by Michael Forster; The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Canadian Artists of the Second World War

• 1982 Royal Academy of Art, London, The Two Hundred and Fourteenth Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition

• 1985 Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, The 1940s, A Decade of Paintings in Ontario

• 1986 Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, Newlyn Society of Artists

• 1993 The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Order out of Chaos: Sixty Years of a Canadian Artist

• 1996 Gallery Gevik, Toronto, Michael Forster

• 1998 Gallery Gevik, Toronto, Michael Forster

• 2001 Galerie d’Art Déclic, Luxembourg, Michael Forster

• 2007 Messum's, Cork Street, London, An Inner Landscape

• 2009 Loch Gallery, Toronto, Michael Forster: The First Canadian Modernist

• 2009 Messum's, Cork Street, London, The Return to England: Abstracts and Landscapes from 1975 onwards

Commissions

• 1943: Enlisted to make visual record of activities for the Merchant Marine
• 1944-46: Selected as an official War Artist with the Royal Canadian Navy

Collections

Seventy-seven of Forster's paintings are held in public collections in Canada including:

• Agnes Etherington Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
• Art Gallery, Hamilton
• Art Gallery of Ontario
• Canadian Library and Archives
• Canadian War Museum
• Glenbow Museum
• MacLaren Art Centre
• National Gallery of Canada
• Owens Art Gallery
• Peel Heritage Centre
• Robert McLaughlan Gallery

In the UK, public collections include:

• British Museum
• Royal Cornwall Hospital

Publications

• Paul Duval and Jane Hamilton, Michael Forster: An Inner Landscape, Marlow: Studio Publications, 2006.
• Linda Jansma, Michael Forster: Order out of Chaos: SIxty Years of a Canadian Artist, Oshawa: Robert McLaughlan Gallery, 1993