Forest, Pierre (1881–1971)

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Related biographies: Printemps, Leon (1871–1945) · Forest, Eugene (1808–1891)

Browse the collection: French artists · Marine paintings · 20th-century paintings

Biography

A painter of the Midi

Pierre Forest was born in Nice on 21 November 1881, and the light of the Mediterranean never left his painting. A landscape and marine painter of the generation that inherited Impressionism and carried it through the first half of the twentieth century, he painted the coasts and harbours of the South, still lifes and flowers, travel subjects, and, in a category all his own, the skies of Paris, which he rendered in pastel with such devotion that the standard French dictionaries describe him simply as "pastelliste des ciels de Paris".

Art ran in the family: he was a nephew of the Lyon engraver Forest-Fleury. He should not be confused with the earlier Eugene Hippolyte Forest (1808-1891), the caricaturist and Barbizon landscape painter; the two are unrelated, and works signed simply "Forest" require the eye to tell them apart by period and manner.

Galleries, salons and travels

Forest built his reputation through the Paris gallery system of the interwar years. He exhibited at the galerie Terrise on the boulevard Haussmann in 1923, then from 1924 to 1929 at the galerie Reitlinger on the rue La Boetie, the street that was then the centre of the Parisian art trade. From 1931 to 1943 he showed at the Salon des Independants, of which he was a societaire. His travels took his work well beyond France: he exhibited in South America, in Switzerland and in Morocco, and his subjects range across the Mediterranean world, from the ports of Provence to the lagoon of Venice.

Pierre Forest, Sailing Ships in Venice, signed oil on cardboard. GalerieClub Fine Art.

Montmartre and the skies of Paris

Until 1938, when he settled permanently in Paris, Forest stayed during his visits in the studio of his friend the painter Gabriel Herve at the Villa des Arts in Montmartre, the storied studio building where Cezanne had painted his portrait of Vollard. He walked the capital sketchbook in hand, and developed a distinctive vision of the city: Paris as a nature transformed by man, under heavy, clouded skies. That vision, wonder-struck and almost naive at first, grew more complex over the years, and it is in these Paris subjects, alongside his southern marines, that his personality shows most clearly.

He died in Paris on 17 December 1971, at the age of ninety. Ten years later, in 1981, the city of Nice honoured its native painter with a retrospective exhibition of his work.

Style, subjects and signature

Forest painted from direct observation, in a free, spontaneous brushwork descended from Impressionism: quick plein-air panels and cardboards, broad confident strokes, a palette that moves from the blues and ochres of the Mediterranean to the leaden greys of his Paris skies. His subjects to look for are harbours and sailing ships, the ports of Provence, Venice, Paris under cloud, flowers and still lifes. His works are typically signed "Forest" or "Pierre Forest", most often in a lower corner. Our oil on cardboard of sailing ships in Venice is a textbook example of his manner: a plein-air study on a lightweight support, the sails built in broad strokes of white and cream against the domes and campanili of the lagoon.

Legacy

Pierre Forest is documented in the standard French references, recorded at the RKD in The Hague, and honoured by the retrospective of 1981 in Nice. His work appears steadily at auction in France and internationally, at prices that make him one of the accessible names of the French landscape tradition between the wars. For collectors, a signed Pierre Forest offers the plein-air manner of the Impressionist inheritance, painted by a man who carried it from the Bay of Angels to the quays of the Seine. Every work offered by GalerieClub Fine Art ships free to the United States and Canada.

Timeline

1881 Born 21 November in Nice. Nephew of the Lyon engraver Forest-Fleury.

1923 Exhibits at the galerie Terrise, boulevard Haussmann, Paris.

1924–1929 Exhibits at the galerie Reitlinger, rue La Boetie.

1931–1943 Societaire of the Salon des Independants, where he exhibits regularly. Stays during his Paris visits at the Villa des Arts, Montmartre, in the studio of Gabriel Herve.

1938 Settles permanently in Paris. Develops his celebrated pastels of the Paris skies.

Career Exhibitions in South America, Switzerland and Morocco. Paints the Mediterranean coast, Venice, Paris, flowers and still lifes.

1971 Dies 17 December in Paris, aged 90.

1981 Retrospective exhibition of his work presented by the city of Nice.

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