Alexander Forbes Irvine FORBES (1871 - 1959) Woodstock Beach Cape Town Oil On Canvas

Rare oil on canvas painting of Woodstock Beach in Cape Town by Alexander Forbes Irvine FORBES (1871-1959), Frame 44,5cm x 33cm,  Artwork itself 32cm x 22,5cm, in plain dark oak frame, inscription and original tag on the back of the frame. This valuable painting is a piece of South African histor.y

Alexander Forbes Irvine Forbes was a South African astronomer, architect and artist, best known for his discovery of periodic comets, including the one that is known as Dodwell- Forbes Comet.

Forbes was born in Kinellar, Aberdeenshire, Scotland and moved to the Cape Colony in 1986. He lived in Woodstock, Cape Town ,where he built a 200mm reflecting telescope and a small observatory at his house, Craigie Brae which was in Liesbeek Road. In the same street lived also Otto Landsberg another very famous South African painter. Forbes painted the house of Otto Landsberg as well. I have two more paintings available of Forbes showing Otto Landsbergs house and garden. 

Forbes lectured regularly on astronomical topics. In 1921 he read a paper on "Reflecting telescopes, with practical directions for grinding and figuring the mirror" at the Cape Astronomical Association and in 1927 presented "Satellites and their movements" to the Natal Astronomical Society. He wrote about astronomical instruments for the Journal of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa and notes about his astronomical work for the Monthly Notes of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa.

Forbes married Louisa Elizabeth Henrietta Crowther on 18 September 1900 in the Cape Province. He retired to Hermanus in 1932, where he built another observatory at his house "Blairythan" and moved the telescope from Rosebank to Hermanus. He designed the house and crafted all of its doors himself. Here he continued his observations as well as his architectural work and painting. In 1956 he returned to Cape Town owing to ill health and lived with his niece, Mrs. Hewiston until his death in 1959.

In 2009 one of his paintings, Hermanus Coast Line was sold at auction.