Untitled; Figure 1964
Watercolour on paper
59.2 x 42.5
Gift of the Estate of Michael C. Williams

Canadian 1926-1996

Nita Forrest’s entrepreneurial spirit played an important role establishing an art market in Victoria. On her arrival in Victoria in 1950 she began studying art under Herbert Siebner and exhibited as part of the Point Group. Her paintings and drawings of human figures were aptly described by writer Robin Skelton in how “They loom and dwindle as if made of cloud stuff, and yet they are also intensely human … “¹ Forrest took over one of the first contemporary commercial art galleries in Victoria, Bente Rehm’s Pandora’s Box, which opened in 1966. She renamed it The Print Gallery, exhibiting current BC artwork. The openings at the gallery often turned into parties that Skelton described as “unexpected Dadaist events” due to the exuberant personalities of Victoria’s artists.²

¹ Robin Skelton, The Memoirs of a Literary Blockhead, 1988
² Robin Skelton, The Limners, 1981