As an Official War Artist for the Canadian Navy in World War II, Forster broke with convention and produced realist, abstract and surreal works; contributed to the 1946 War Art Show in Toronto; and had 27 pieces acquired by the Ottawa War Museum. He became a Canadian citizen and married Adele Davis. Settled in Montreal in the 1950s, Forster painted, exhibited and was art critic for The Standard before, in 1952, moving with his wife to Mexico, where they stayed 11 years. Forster worked on murals, taught stained glass design at the Universidad Ibero-Americano; was befriended by the artists Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo; painted, in 1960 having a big solo exhibition at the Museo Nationale de Arte Moderno, a rare honour for a foreigner; and, when money was short, wrote fiction as Michael Forrestier. His stories appeared in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post (Gem Thief was used as an episode in the television series 77 Sunset Strip, winning an Emmy Award in 1959), Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (winning a best first story award) and Argosy. After returning to Canada and the death of his wife in 1974, in 1975 Forster moved to England to care for his widowed sister and thereafter lived at Treen, Cornwall, with his second wife, Gloria Ochitwa, whom he had met earlier in Canada. Forster’s art evolved into luminous colourism, the Canadian art historian Paul Duval writing: “As a colorist, Forster must be considered among the pre-eminent of the twentieth century.” Although he showed with the Newlyn Society of Artists for some years, the rather reclusive Forster was largely unknown in Britain. However, he had many exhibitions around the world at important venues, including retrospectives at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Canada, 1993, and Galerie d’Art Déclic, Luxembourg, 2002. Other shows included one in 2002 at the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Canada, which holds over 2,000 of his drawings. After his death, Messum’s handled his work.