Tom Forrestall
This exhibition features a selection of Tom Forrestall’s (Class of ’58) works, all drawn from the Owens’ permanent collection. It complements The Sketchbooks of Tom Forrestall, a special project currently on display at Mount Allison’s Ralph Pickard Bell Library and Archives. Featuring the sketchbook collection of the artist, which numbers close to 400 volumes and covers seventy years of artistic practice, it gives visitors a rare glimpse at a visual and written diary spanning a creative lifetime and offers unique insight into the artist’s working life. The results of this daily practice of creative observation and recording can be seen in the works on display at the Owens, which reflect Forrestall’s longstanding interest in the magical details of everyday places, animals, and things.
About the Artist
Thomas DeVany Forrestall, C.M., O.N.S., B.F.A. LL.D., RCA is one of Canada’s leading realist artists. He was born in Middleton Nova Scotia, in 1936. In 1954, he was awarded a scholarship to the Fine Arts Department at Mount Allison University, where he studied with Lawren P. Harris, Ted Pulford, and Alex Colville. Graduating in 1958, he received one of the first Canada Council grants for independent study, which provided him with the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. Upon their return to Canada, he moved to New Brunswick with his family, where he became Assistant Curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Forrestall has been a full-time artist since 1960 and his work has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public collection in Canada.
Image: Tom Forrestall, Breakwater, 1965, acrylic on Masonite, purchased with funds provided by the Windsor Foundation
