Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson

Inscriptionback to top

Inscr. lower right: ‘Forbes Robertson’.

This portraitback to top

These rough sketches and the verso image, NPG 4529(307a) (which is probably the first of the three studies), are drawn on either side of a small postcard, apparently ad hoc and presumably as glimpsed in a public space since the sitter is wearing his hat. Taken together, they capture the key aspects that the political cartoonist David Low commonly rendered in his studies: features and expression; profile; posture. The inscription is in the artist’s hand.

From the sitter’s elderly appearance, especially in the verso image, the sketches show him at or over the age of seventy, and perhaps date from the late 1920s. He had long retired from the stage but was still a recognizable figure in London society. Low’s interest in Forbes-Robertson was perhaps sparked by the portrait by Bernard Partridge published in Punch in 1926 (see NPG D6612b).

For comparable sketches and studies see NPG Portrait Set ‘Working drawings by Sir David Low, 1926–63’. Some were drawn informally on a notepad issued by an estate agent and on a menu card; others are more carefully executed. The majority of Low’s sitters in this collection were from political and public life, only a few being writers or performers.

Low began his career in his native New Zealand, moving to Britain in 1919 where he worked until 1927 for the Star, a London evening newspaper, and then for the Evening Standard, steadily focussing on political events, including the European build-up to and progress of the Second World War. Many of his satirical depictions offered trenchant and memorable comments on historic events and personalities. In the late 1920s and early 1930s some of Low’s portraits were published as full-page images in the radical weekly the New Statesman; see for example NPG D8780 and NPG D4534.

Dr Jan Marsh

Physical descriptionback to top

Two sketches, both standing, profile to left, one whole-length, one three-quarter-length wearing top hat.

Provenanceback to top

Purchased 1967.

View all known portraits for Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson