Kenneth Keith Forbes (July 4, 1892 – 1980) was a portrait and landscape painter. His painting entitled ''Canadian Artillery in action'' is on display at the
Canadian War Museum
The Canadian War Museum (french: link=no, Musée canadien de la guerre; CWM) is a national museum on the country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military history, in a ...
.
Life
Born in
Toronto, Ontario
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, Forbes was the son of John Colin Forbes, R.C.A. (1846–1925) a distinguished portraitist who painted such notable figures as
William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
,
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (né Campbell; 7 September 183622 April 1908) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. He served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1905 to 1908 and leader of the Liberal Party from 1899 to 190 ...
and Sir
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier, ( ; ; November 20, 1841 – February 17, 1919) was a Canadian lawyer, statesman, and politician who served as the seventh prime minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911. The first French Canadian prime minis ...
. John Forbes' penultimate commission was the portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra which were destroyed in the 1952 fire in the Parliamentary Library in Ottawa.
Kenneth Forbes studied first at the
Newlyn School
The Newlyn School was an art colony of artists based in or near Newlyn, a fishing village adjacent to Penzance, on the south coast of Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early twentieth century. The establishment of the Newlyn School was reminisc ...
,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
with
Stanhope Forbes
Stanhope Alexander Forbes (18 November 1857 – 2 March 1947) was a British artist and a founding member of the influential Newlyn school of painters. He was often called 'the father of the Newlyn School'.[Hospitalfield House
Hospitalfield House is an arts centre and historic house in Arbroath, Angus, Scotland, regarded as "one of the finest country houses in Scotland". It is believed to be "Scotland's first school of fine art" and the first art college in Britain. It ...]
school,
Arbroath
Arbroath () or Aberbrothock ( gd, Obar Bhrothaig ) is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the council area of Angus, Scotland, with a population of 23,902.
It lies on the North Sea coast some ENE of Dundee and SSW of Aberdeen.
The ...
, Scotland. He won a Chase Scholarship in London with a portrait sketch, and at 19 had a portrait accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy.
In all, twelve of Kenneth Forbes portraits were exhibited at the
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...
.
Forbes enlisted in the 10th "Pals" Battalion of the
Royal Fusiliers
The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in continuous existence for 283 years. It was known as the 7th Regiment of Foot until the Childers Reforms of 1881.
The regiment served in many wars ...
in 1914 and was later commissioned from the ranks.
He was wounded in action and gassed. Forbes ended his combat service as second in command of the 32nd Battalion,
Machine Gun Corps
The Machine Gun Corps (MGC) was a corps of the British Army, formed in October 1915 in response to the need for more effective use of machine guns on the Western Front in the First World War. The Heavy Branch of the MGC was the first to use tank ...
. After being transferred to Lord Beaverbrook's Canadian War Memorials Fund in 1918, Forbes became an official Canadian
war artist. Forbes was twice
Mentioned in Dispatches
To be mentioned in dispatches (or despatches, MiD) describes a member of the armed forces whose name appears in an official report written by a superior officer and sent to the high command, in which their gallant or meritorious action in the face ...
for his service.
According to a
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
newspaper report from April 1918, Forbes had recently received a commission from
Lord Beaverbrook
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...
(Max Aitken) to paint a series of official war pictures at the front.
Forbes was also a successful amateur boxer, being light and middle weight champion of the University of London while attending the
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
. He continued his boxing while in the army, becoming champion of the British Army's 111th Brigade.
In late 1918, Forbes married his wife Jean Mary Edgell, another art student, in London. They had a daughter, June Forbes McCormack
In 1953 Forbes resigned from the
Ontario Society of Artists
The Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) was founded in 1872. It is Canada's oldest continuously operating professional art society. When it was founded at the home of John Arthur Fraser, seven artists were present. Besides Fraser himself, Marmaduke M ...
in protest against what he considered the unwarranted recognition and attention given to abstract and what was then called "modern art". In 1958 he resigned from the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880.
History 1880 to 1890
The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...
for the same reasons. He later published a short book, ''Great Art to the Grotesque'' with an introduction and biographical sketch by Roy Greenaway, as a full statement of his rejection of the artistic worth of abstract or "Modern Art".
In 1958, Forbes, Manley MacDonald, Victor Llewellyn Child, Gordon Roy Conn and others established the Ontario Institute of Painters as a body for traditional or "realist" artists. Members included Douglas Ferguson Elliott, J. R. Tate, and Marion Long.
Forbes was awarded the Thomas R. Proctor Prize for portraiture by the National Academy of Design, New York (Now known as the
National Academy Museum and School
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fi ...
) on two occasions: 1932 and 1939.
In 1967, he was made an Officer of the
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit.
To coincide with the ...
"for his contributions to the arts as a landscape and portrait painter".
In 1972 he had a book published, ''Great Art to the Grotesque''.
Kenneth Forbes died in Toronto on February 25, 1980.
Works
See also
*
List of portraits in the Centre Block
The Centre Block, part of the complex of parliamentary buildings on Parliament Hill in Canada's capital, Ottawa, hosts a gallery of portraits of present and former Canadian monarchs, former Prime Ministers of Canada, and other figures.
History
...
*
Canadian official war artists Canadian official war artists create an artistic rendering of war through the media of visual, digital installations, film, poetry, choreography, music, etc., by showing its impact as men and women are shown waiting, preparing, fighting, suffering, ...
*
War artist
*
War art
Military art is art with a military subject matter, regardless of its style or medium. The battle scene is one of the oldest types of art in developed civilizations, as rulers have always been keen to celebrate their victories and intimidate po ...
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Kenneth
1892 births
1980 deaths
20th-century Canadian painters
Canadian male painters
British Army personnel of World War I
Officers of the Order of Canada
Canadian war artists
Royal Fusiliers officers
Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
World War I artists
Machine Gun Corps officers
20th-century Canadian male artists