Gordon Mitchell Forsyth RI, ARCA (from 1940)
Born 1879 (Probable)
Active: 1919 - 1951
Country of birth and death: Scotland
President of art society, art director at pottery
Born in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. Trained in Aberdeen and then the Royal College Art, winning a travel scholarship in 1902. He was Art Director at Minton Hollins and Co. (c.1902-5) and then at Pilkington Tile and Pottery Co. from c.1906. After the First World War he was superintendant of art instruction at Stoke and Burslem Schools of Art and then became an adviser to the British Pottery Manufacturers Association. [see Elliott, 'Potters', 2004]
Exhibitions, Meetings, Awards and other Events
Exhibited at Autumn exhibition of modern pictures in oil and water-colours: the twenty-fifth (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), 1895
1895
Tarantella - A Sketch (cat. no. 1332, low relief, for sale in plaster £9 19s. 6d., in bronze £40).
Exhibited at Autumn exhibition of modern pictures in oil and water-colours: the twenty-eighth (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), 1898
1898
Professor Bannister Fletcher (cat. no. 1388, bronze bust, not for sale).
Selection committee member of Eighth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists (City of Stoke on Trent Museums and Art Gallery, Hanley), 1942
March 1942
Institutional and Business Connections
Director of Minton and Company
1903 (Circa) - 1906 (Circa)
See Stuart 'People of the Potteries' (1985), p. 98.
Member of Society of Staffordshire Artists
1945 - 1951
Listed as a 'Patron and Life Member' of the Society.
President of Society of Staffordshire Artists
1940 (Presumed) - 1944 (Presumed)
Principal of Burslem School of Art
1911 (Circa) - 1944 (Circa)
See Haggar (1953), pp. 33-35.
From 1938 Forsyth was Superintendent/Art Master of the Stoke on Trent Schools of Art [see Prospectus (1938-39), p. 4]. Listed as principal in minutes from 1927.
Sources
A Century of Art Education in the Potteries. With notes on the Artists, 1953 Local Studies
1953 (Circa)
pp. 33-34.
Autumn exhibition of modern pictures in oil and water-colours: the twenty-eighth, 1898 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1898
pp. 45-48.
Board of Education Minute Paper, 8 April, 1927 Burslem School of Art, 1911-1935
8 April 1927
p. 1.
City of Stoke-on-Trent Schools of Art Prospectus, 1938-1939
12 September 1938
p. 4.
Eighth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists, 1942
March 1942
p. 1.
Ninth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists, 1943
March 1943
p. 1.
People and the Potteries. A Dictionary of Local Biography Volume 1
1985
p. 98.
Potters
2004
p. 30, fn. 14
Seventh Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists, 1941
April 1941
p. 1.
Sixth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists, 1940
February 1940
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists Seventeenth Annual Exhibition, 1951
March 1951
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Autumn Exhibition, 1945
November 1945
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Eleventh Annual Exhibition, 1945
March 1945
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Fifteenth Annual Exhibition, 1949
March 1949
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Fourteenth Annual Exhibition, 1948
March 1948
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Thirteenth Annual Exhibition, 1947
April 1947
p. 1.
Society of Staffordshire Artists. Twelfth Annual Exhibition, 1946
March 1946
p. 1.
Tenth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Staffordshire Artists, 1944
March 1944
p. 1.
Citing this record
'Gordon Mitchell Forsyth RI, ARCA (from 1940)', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib4_1220358100, accessed 07 Jun 2023]
