biography of William FORSYTH (1854-1935)

Birth place: California, OH

Death place: Indianapolis

Addresses: Irvington, Indianapolis

Profession: Painter, teacher

Studied: with John Love, Indiana School Art; Royal Acad., Munich, 1881-88, with Loefftz, Benczur, Gysis; Lietzenmeyer.

Exhibited: Munich, 1885 (bronze medal); Art Exhibit of Hoosier Colony in Munich, Indianapolis, 1885; NAD, 1887-92; Boston AC, 1889-1905; World's Columbian Expo, Chicago, 1893; PAFA, 1893, 1911; Five Hoosier Painters, Chicago, 1894; Trans-Mississippi & International Expo, Omaha, NE, 1898; AIC; St. Louis Expo, 1904 (medals); Louisiana Purchase Expo, St. Louis, 1904 (silver medal and bronze medal); Richmond AA Ann., 1906 (honorable mention); Int. FA Expo, Buenos Aires, 1910 (bronze medal); annually, 1896-1914, Soc. Western Artists, 1910 (Fine Arts Building prize); Richmond AA Ann., 1911 (honorable mention); Richmond AA Ann., 1912 (Mary T. A. Foulke); Pan.-Pacific Expo, San Francisco, 1915 (silver & bronze medals); Richmond, IN, 1923 (prize); Indianapolis AA, 1924 (prize), 1925 (prize); Chicago Galleries Assoc., 1928 (purchase prize); Indiana Artists' Exhibit, Ball Teachers College, Muncie, 1928 (first prize).

Member: Indianapolis AA; AWCS; Bohe Club (founder); Anglo-American Artists Club, Munich (secretary, four years); Portfolio Club; Soc. of Western Artists (organizer, 1896)

Work: mural project, Indianapolis City Hospital; Indianapolis AA; Public Gallery, Richmond, IN; Brooklyn Mus.; Vanderpoel AA Collection, Chicago; Indianapolis Mus. Art (The Constitutional Elm, Corydon"); Indianapolis Public School #57; Flanner and Buchanan, Inc. ("Cliff Road")."

Comments: Studied in Germany, returning in 1888 to Indiana to help J. Ottis Adams with his teaching in Fort Wayne. They opened the Muncie Art School in 1889; but he left in 1891 and became an instructor at the Indiana School of Art in Indianapolis. He was one of the Hoosier Group" of artists and a founder and active member of the Society of Western Artists. Forsyth loved the outdoors and was best known as a landscape painter. He was the first historian of the modern art movement in Indianapolis. He supervised the mural project undertaken in 1914 at the Indianapolis City Hospital. Worked briefly in New England, California and Europe, 1927-31. Instructor of drawing and painting, John Herron Art Inst., 1906-33; worked for Public Works Administration, 1933.

Sources: WW33; Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 2: 264 (with repro.); Newton and Gerdts, 110-37,155-56 (with repro.); The Boston AC; Falk, Exh. Record Series.