1918-2002
Born in Tranmere, Birkenhead, lived in the Conwy area from 1978, became associate member of the RCA in 1958 and full member in 1959. Landscape painter.
Edwin Forrest was of Welsh and Manx parentage and spent a lot of time as a youngster with family in Caerwys.
On his early retirement as curator of the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead, he moved to Wales to live
and paint until his death in November 2002.
Ed was born of working class parents who were unable to provide their gifted son with a formal art education, though he was taken regularly by his father to the galleries of the Lady Lever in Port Sunlight and the Williamson in Birkenhead.
Not able to accept an offered place at the Slade, he studied at the Laird School of Art and the Liverpool School of Art. He trained as an ecclesiastical and lettering artist in his grandfather's painting and decoration business. Oil became his forte and he was known for the scintillating light of his seascapes and landscapes, and the darkness in his skies and in the blue-black Welsh hills.
