Jim Forsberg

Born 1919, Sauk Centre, MN; died 1991, Provincetown, MA.

Forsberg studied with Alexander Masley at the Minneapolis School of Art, beginning in 1939, and Cameron Booth at the St. Paul School of Art beginning in 1941. After service in the Pacific in World War II, he studied with Booth and Vaclav Vytlacil at the Art Students League in New York beginning in 1946.

From 1946 to 1953 Forsberg had his first New York show at the Ashby Gallery in Greenwich Village and became a member of "The Printmakers," a group of young artists working in old and new printmaking methods. He made many editions of his cardboard-cut prints and began to work with stone-like shapes in his paintings and prints, a theme which was reinforced by his visit to Stonehenge in 1950 during a trip to England, Holland, and France.

Forsberg studied with Hans Hofmann in the fall of 1950 in New York and had a one-man show of paintings and a separate show of prints at the New Gallery. After a productive summer of painting in Provincetown, Forsberg had a second one-man exhibit at the New Gallery in 1953. The intense light surrounding the narrow spit of land that was Provincetown attracted him as a place to paint, and in May 1954 he and his family moved into the town which continued to be his home and working location until his death in 1991.

During the fifties he did two commissioned prints for the International Graphic Arts Society. He had one-man shows and representation at the Esther Robles Gallery in Los Angeles. In Provincetown he had shows at the HCE Gallery, the Front Street Gallery, and at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum.

In 1976 he opened the Depot Gallery in Wellfleet, showing his own work and that of other Provincetown artists. His work was becoming more simple; he was using circles in squares, suns and moons and lots of red. He began to make collage with Japanese papers and the circles. Gradually the circles disappeared and the collage took over.

From 1980 to his death Forsberg showed in his studio several times as well as showing with the Provincetown Group Gallery. The Provincetown Art Association and Museum held a retrospective exhibition in 1986. [Refer also to the Jim Forsberg: Motifs in Color and Form exhibition at PAAM July 7 - August 27, 2017].

Forsberg's work is in many private collections, as well as those of the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo, Brazil, National Gallery, Washington, DC; Cincinnati Museum, Syracuse University, and Smith College.

[Source: www.provincetownartregistry.com]