Additional Images

Provenance:

Marlborough-Godard Gallery, Toronto, ON
Private Collection, Toronto, ON

Note:

Forestall was highly attuned to the artistic potential of the quotidian, and through his eyes, was able to render it extraordinary. An edge of mystery was central to his paintings, leaving the exact meaning and storyline up to the audience. Elissa Barnard writes that “like Colville and the Pratts, Forrestall draws on his daily life and environment for subject matter. “Wherever you choose to live you draw the universal out of that area. It’s not regional or backwater, it’s what you make of it,” [Forestall] says. “I create a universal from what’s at hand.””[1]

“The Foundation” reminds us that construction was a core part of Forestall’s upbringing, as his father was a carpenter. In 1942, the family moved to Dartmouth, where his father found work at the Victoria General Hospital. His grandmother owned a house there, which sat next to a property next door, which Forestall’s father renovated for their family to live in. Forestall recalls: “It forever was being built. We loved it. There were always blocks and chunks of wood we put to creative use.”[2]

Forrestall often paints in egg tempera, a method he was introduced to by Alex Colville. Forestall recalled: “For some reason it twigged with me. I don’t know if it was the way Alex taught it. He did use egg tempera himself and I’ve always admired Alex.”[3] The method which requires the artist to mix pigments with a binder, provided by the yolk of an egg. Pre-dating oil paint, egg tempera examples from the first century still exist. The paint must be carefully monitored to ensure the right consistency, with the artist balancing water and yolk in the mixture both during the painting and the drying process. Egg tempera is not flexible, and requires a stiff surface to prevent cracking. The paint itself cannot be stored long term, adding to the primacy of the process, well suited to an artist who, like Forrestall, enjoyed creating work en plein air.

[1] https://robertpopefoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Forrestall-pages-v5-2-23.pdf, pages 15-16.
[2] https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/the-makings-of-artist-tom-forrestall-350192
[3] https://robertpopefoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Forrestall-pages-v5-2-23.pdf, page 11.