John Wycliffe Lowes Forster

J. W. L. Forster or, more formally, John Wycliffe Lowes Forster RCA (31 December 1850 – 24 April 1938) was a Canadian artist specializing in portraits. Many of his works can be found at the National Gallery of Canada.

J. W. L. Forster
John Wycliffe Lowes Forster
Born	(1850-12-31)December 31, 1850 Norval, Canada West
Died	April 24, 1934(1934-04-24) (aged 83) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Education	studied in Toronto with J. W. Bridgman; Académie Julian, Paris, with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger (1880-1882); Tony Robert-Fleury and William-Adolphe Bouguereau; and later with Carolus Duran
Known for	portrait and landscape painter
Notable work	portrait of James Whiteside, Toronto

Career

In Toronto in 1869, he started his art education as a student of portrait painter John Wesley Bridgman (1833–1902). For his portrait of Bridgman, he won first place in the amateur division at the Upper Canada Agricultural Society's annual fair in 1871. In 1879 Forster studied for three months at the South Kensington Art School in London with Canadian landscape painter Charles Stuart Millard (1837-1917). After that, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, studying with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger (1880-1882); Tony Robert-Fleury and William-Adolphe Bouguereau; and later, with Carolus Duran.^[1]

He returned to Toronto in 1883 and was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.^[2] Among his writings are 2 volumes of autobiography and a survey of early Ontario artists.^[3]

Gallery

• 
  Aeneas Shaw by John Wycliffe Lowes Forster
• 
  Sir Sandford Fleming (1892) by John Wycliffe Lowes Forster
• 
  Albert William Austin (1857–1931), Canadian golfer, director of the Dominion Bank, son of James Austin

Works

Title/subject	Artist	Date created	>Medium
Alexander Mackenzie	John Wycliffe Lowes Forster	1897	Oil on canvas
John Sparrow David Thompson	John Wycliffe Lowes Forster	1897	Oil on canvas
Robert Franklin Sutherland	John Wycliffe Lowes Forster	circa 1906	Oil on canvas