Noel Forster

Noel Armstrong Forster (15 June 1932 – 7 December 2007) was a British artist who trained at King's College Newcastle a part of Durham University, graduating in 1957.

Forster was born in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland and attended to Gosforth Grammar School.^[1] He married Eileen Conlon in 1962, later having three sons with her. In due course he became Principal lecturer in Painting at the Chelsea College of Art & Design in Chelsea as well as Artist-in-Residence and Supernumerary Fellow at Balliol College Oxford University. In 1978 he won the John Moores Painting Prize^[2] His art can best be described as abstract, colourful and usually involving a cross-weaved fabric of straight or curved parallel lines drawn by hand, often executed in oil on linen. He died in London.

"Noel was in my view the most important post-War abstract painter in England, and his work combined performance, intellectual rigour and the artist's craft. It was simultaneously clever and sensuous. He was an influential teacher too and a very gifted musician. But he was also larger than life." Stephen Bury, Curator, British Library, 8 December 2007

"Noel was a splendid friend, and a wonderful painter.He thought endlessly about the relations of paint and light, and talked with extraordinary clarity - and complexity - about making works of art. He taught me a lot about looking.The ideas behind his own work were intricate and uncompromising."

http://www.noelforster.co.uk AS Byatt, Author, Dec 2007

"Noel Forster was an adventurous and productive artist whose glowing, audacious personality looked out from his canvasses." Obituary in The Times, 17 January 2008^{[dead link]} Bernard Cohen, Artist, Dec 2007

• Chris Yetton, Noel Forster: Artist who believed that painting is the 'concretisation of light' (obituary), The Independent, 2 January 2008
• Noel Forster official website
• Detailed Profile at Flowers
• Aspects of his work with an Interview
• Obituary in The Times, 17 January 2008^{[dead link]}