Details of Sculptor

Surname

Forrest

Alternative Surname

First Name

Robert, of Lanark

Initial of Surname

F

Year of Birth/Baptism

1790

Flourished

Year of Death

1852

Biographical Details

A Scottish mason-sculptor, he came to prominence in the 1830s after holding an exhibition of his works in Edinburgh. He was born on 28 June 1790 at Braidwood, Carluke, Lanarkshire, the son of Robert Forrest and Helen, née Hamilton, and trained as a stonemason in the quarries of Clydesdale where he began carving figurines and animals around 1810, after visiting the collections of several local noblemen. His career as a sculptor began in 1817 when he was apparently discovered carving animals in an old quarry by a Colonel Gordon, who had lost his way when out shooting. Gordon was sufficiently impressed by Forrest’s work to commission a figure of Bacchus and to recommend him to his friends, including Mr Robertson of Hall Craig who commissioned a life-sized statue of a Highland chieftain (3, 4). Further orders followed and Forrest adopted sculpture as a profession, establishing a workshop in a quarry near Lanark, where he executed statues of Old Norval, Falstaff and Rob Roy (5-7). In 1820 he presented a statue of Sir William Wallace to the town of Lanark (8). His depiction of the Scottish national hero, dressed in a ‘Roman costume with sword and buckler’, was well received by the local population who, on the day of the unveiling, carried the sculptor ‘in triumph through the streets, preceded by musk and the banners of the different trades’ (Georgian Era 1834, cited by Gunnis 1968, 155).
Forrest was largely self-taught though he received some formal artistic training after he moved to Edinburgh in 1823 (DNB). There he studied at the Trustees School of Design, attended evening classes at the School of Arts and received private tuition in modelling. Two years later he was living in Glasgow, where he studied anatomy, drawing and modelling at Mr Warren’s Academy. During the same period he found employment carving 2 prominent public monuments. In 1825 he executed a statue of John Knox from a model by William Warren, which was placed on a column designed by Thomas Hamilton in Glasgow Necropolis (12). This was followed by a figure of Lord Melville, designed by Sir Francis Chantrey and modelled by Luke O’Neil (13). It was erected on a column designed by William Burn, in St Andrew’s Square, Edinburgh, in August 1827.
Forrest opened his own sculpture exhibition in the summer of 1832 next to the National Monument on Calton Hill, Edinburgh. Initially it consisted of four colossal equestrian groups representing Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Wellington, each carved from a single block of sandstone weighing approximately 20 tons (14-17). The exhibition grew steadily and by 1835, when the first of 3 descriptive catalogues was published, there were more than 16 pieces on display in a series of wooden huts behind the National Monument. The statues depicted popular characters from Scottish history, literature and folk lore in a lively, informal style. Examples included figures of Symon and Bauldy inspired by Allan Ramsay’s pastoral poem, The gentle shepherd, and a group of King James V attacked by brigands in Cramond Wood (18, 20, 21). Forrest used his considerable skill as a showman to attract public attention to his spectacle and his activities were enthusiastically reported by the Scotsman. The exhibition became one of the city’s most popular attractions and it greatly enhanced the sculptor’s reputation.
In spite of the attention accorded to his exhibition, Forrest’s attempts to attract patronage met with only limited success. In 1835 he competed for the prestigious Glasgow monument to Sir Walter Scott but the commission was awarded to his former assistant John Greenshields. He had a notable success however with a pair of figures of Nelson and Wellington, commissioned by Alexander Falconer for the façade of Falcon Hall in Edinburgh (22). Falconer may have financed the sculptor’s journey to France and Italy in 1837. Forrest’s most ambitious project, for an 80-foot-high seated statue of the Duke of Wellington for Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh, fell through when Lord Elgin, who had commissioned the work, died in 1841. However he successfully completed a public monument to Robert Ferguson of Raith which has a statue of Ferguson atop a Doric column, with 4 mourning figures at the base. It was erected at Haddington, East Lothian, in 1843 (26).
Forrest struggled to find a market for his work and faced increasingly serious financial difficulties during the 1840s. In 1849, when he refused to pay an increased rental for the ground occupied by his exhibition, Edinburgh Town Council asked the sculptor to leave, but he was unable to finance the removal of his statues. He attempted to raise the necessary funds through an exhibition of some of his works in Cheshire but the venture was a complete failure and only added to his debts. The authorities were unable to find a solution and the works were still standing on Calton Hill when Forrest died on 29 December 1852. There they remained for a further 14 years during which time the Town Council repeatedly demanded that Forrest’s widow should remove the sculpture, which she could not afford to do. Eventually in 1865 the Council sought a warrant for the ejection of the statues and in 1866 paid for their removal and storage in Royal Crescent Park. They were finally sold by auction in November 1876.
Although Forrest’s exhibition was a marked success as a popular entertainment his works have not generally been admired by art experts. In 1876, when Edinburgh Town Council briefly considered purchasing Forrest’s works, ‘Municeps Edinburgensis’ wrote to the Scotsman, ‘While no one can deny that for a self-taught mason these figures testify to great industry, enterprise, and perseverance, no one who knows anything of art can fail to see that they are of a very crude and commonplace description and void of artistic refinement’ (Scotsman, 14 March 1876, 7). In a recent article Joe Rock has attempted to rehabilitate the sculptor, arguing that he did much to encourage public interest in sculpture in Scotland and produced works that were vigorous and immediate.
EH
Literary References: Anderson IX, 1882, 710; Gunnis 1968, 155; Woodward 1977, vol 1, pt 2, 71-5; Forbes 2000, 92-3; Rock 2003, 62-71; ODNB (Fagan, Rev McKenzie)
Archival References: IGI
Additional MS Sources: Forrest Papers
Auction Catalogues: Forrest 1876
Will: NAS SC70/1/79 and SC70/4/27, ESC will and inventory, 2 May 1852