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Forster was a notable commercial artist, with no known gallery output. He was born in Brixton on 12th June 1895, as elder son of Mabel and Alfred Forster: his father was variously a clerk, a superintendent of a ladies' cloaks and mantles factory and later a manufacturer of them. The family was unexceptionally middle-class, moderately well-off, and somewhat peripatetic, moving from Brixton to Herne Hill, then Willesden, and to Watford by 1911. At the age of 15, Forster was apprenticed to the renowned graphic designer Fred Taylor (1875–1963). How this occurred is unknown but possibly through his grandfather, Joseph, who was a publisher. A very successful career followed, though his public profile then and now is surprisingly low for a man reported in a short 1940 portrait piece (The Bystander, 17th April) as ‘probably the highest-paid commercial artist in the country’.

Text source: Art Detective


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