A MIND IN MOTION: THE ART OF CHARLES H. FORRESTER

A daughter preserves her father’s artistic contributions in this coffee-table book that intersperses sculptures, drawings, and paintings with essays.

In 1960, Charles H. Forrester asserted that the duty of an artist was “to seek meaning in chaos.” Born in 1928 near New York City, he learned to understand disorder growing up in the shadow of the Depression and World War II. He married the politically engaged Dorothy Reese and moved to Seattle. There, he changed his focus from engineering to fine arts and began his influential career, working in a wide variety of materials, from plywood and welded wire to bronze. The brief biographical essay that forms the warm heart of this volume was written by the artist’s son, John, and daughter, Winifred, the book’s editor. They are perhaps best positioned to describe how Forrester’s art emerged from and was expressed by his life. (He died in 2010.) The other writings in these pages explore specific aspects of Forrester’s oeuvre. The keynote essay by Guy Jordan, an associate professor of art history, describes Forrester’s abstract works as “art forms which do not speak in words.” Jordan points out the humor evident in such pieces as Running Abreast, a sculpture that combines the muscular leg of a runner with a woman’s pendulous breast. Most of the volume is comprised of reproductions of Forrester’s wide body of work, with elucidating commentary by Joe Nolan, a musician, writer, and artist. Nolan points out the “voluptuous forms and stylized lines” that are present even in Forrester’s representational pieces, such as his expressive portrait busts. Works like The Voyage, an abstract sculpture of two linked figures that evokes the uncertainty of travel, and The Equestrian, a concrete monolith commissioned for the Oregon centennial, are commanding on the page, inspiring a desire to experience them in person. Overall, this illuminating book provides a substantial and comprehensive overview of Forrester’s philosophy and the place of his works in the pantheon of modern art.

A captivating examination of a creative mind in constant motion.