Elizabeth Adela Stanhope Forbes

'…as an artist she stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best'

Norman Garstin, 1901

Elizabeth Adela Armstrong was born in Ottawa in 1859. Her parents decided that it would be beneficial for her to receive an English education and she was sent with her mother to school in London, living with an uncle on Cheyne Walk next to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (whom she admired enormously but never met). In London she enrolled at the South Kensington School of art and although she felt she was too young to immerse herself with other students in the rigorous art training, the school enabled her technical skills to improve and she became a superb draughtsman. Elizabeth then moved back to Canada and over the next few years further travel meant she became conversant with the art scene in New York, Munich, Pont Aven and London. She faced constant challenges and prejudice; as a woman she was unable to participate fully in artistic training and in Munich especially, she was isolated and felt she was not taken seriously. Crucially, Elizabeth had the unwavering support of a strong woman, her mother. She was instrumental in enabling Elizabeth to pursue an artistic career as prior to being married Elizabeth had to be chaperoned. As Judith Cook and Melissa Hardie note in Singing from the Walls ‘It says a good deal for Elizabeth’s mother that she was prepared to devote herself over the next few years to supporting her daughter’s ambition to become an artist’.

Elizabeth exhibited prolifically between 1883-1888 and in 1891 won a medal at the Paris International Exhibition. In partnership with her husband Stanhope, she set up an art school in Newlyn, providing an opportunity for young women to study art in a free and safe environment. As an artist she had a strong interest in colour, landscape and depicting children and was sophisticated at handling light and movement. She also worked in pastel, charcoal, watercolour and dry-point.

The present painting is a sensitive and intimate portrait of Marion Kerr. Elizabeth painted a number of portraits throughout her career, often close friends and students, for example Portrait of Cecily Tennyson Jesse, Portrait of Alice Elizabeth Craft and portraits of her husband, Stanhope.