Amy Leslie Forster
Birthname: Amy Leslie Worth
Nationality: British
Date of birth: 17 April 1852
Place of birth: Littlehampton
Date of death: 21 August 1904
Place of death: Middlesex
Category: sitter
Identity:
She was the daughter of John Alger Worth, a shipbuilder, and his wife Mary Anne, who by 1861 were living in Hampstead, London, and had three sons and three daughters.
Her husband, Matthew Forster (1826-1881), was a barrister, of Frere, Forster and Frere, solicitors. Their daughter, Yvonne Mabel (b. 21 October 1877), married Henry Dyson; Francis L.M. was born ca 1874 and Evelyn A.E., ca 1876. They had two more daughters, Maude Elizabeth and Nina Dorothy.
Life:
Whistler was friendly with the Forster family, who lived at 37 Ennismore Gardens in Knightsbridge. In a letter to his sister-in-law Nellie, dated 16 December 1881, Whistler's mentioned that he was working on a portrait of Amy Forster (GUW #06695). Her portrait was still in his Tite Street studio in 1884 when the artists Walter Sickert and J. E. Blanche saw it there. It was apparently a 'black on black' portrait, but nothing further is known of it (Portrait of Mrs Forster y234).
About 1881/1884 Whistler drew a picture of Amy Forster's daughter (Portrait of Miss Yvonne Forster m0838).
Mrs Forster was among those invited to the private view of the Royal Society of British Artists 1887-88 winter exhibition (GUW #13403). In 1892 she was also invited to the private view of Whistler's Goupil Gallery exhibition, Nocturnes, Marines and Chevalet Pieces (GUW #08449).
In 1891 the widowed Mrs Forster was living in Cadogan Square, Chelsea.
Bibliography:
UK census 1861, 1881, 1891, birth and death records (Ancestry.uk); Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980; MacDonald, Margaret F., James McNeill Whistler. Drawings, Pastels and Watercolours. A Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 1995.
