Tom Forrestall

[4] His studio teachers were Lawren P. Harris, the Fine Arts department head, Ted Pulford, who taught watercolour painting, and Alex Colville.

[4] In 1959 Forrestall moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick and was hired as assistant curator of the newly opened Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

Forrestall testified that he understood from his work as assistant curator and his contact with Beaverbrook that the paintings were "all one big, great gift".

The mural, which resembles "an enormous colourful box resting atop a Georgian-style theatre", made the Playhouse "one of the most recognizable [buildings] in Atlantic Canada".

[11] In 1974 he collaborated with the poet Alden Nowlan on a book entitled Shaped by This Land, in which 54 poems were juxtaposed with 76 paintings and sketches.

[12] In 1986 Forrestall's portrait of Pierre Trudeau's three sons, which had been commissioned by the Canadian government, was presented to the former prime minister as a gift from the nation.

Forrestall spent six months in a Dartmouth automobile showroom painting the 1980 Mercedes-Benz 300 SD four-door sedan that he had owned and driven from 1980 until 2012 with images of the changing seasons.

[5] A 2016 exhibition of landscapes and interiors was described as expressing "distinct moments of stillness and movement in quiet, discreet places; in nature, in home and in human consciousness"[20] Forrestall's over 400 sketchbooks, which he began when still in his teens, contain "drawings, small wash paintings, and writings on his art and life".

[5] Tom Smart, who curated a major Forrestall retrospective exhibition, remarked in 2022 that the existence of this "continuous" set of notebooks, spanning a period of 70 years, is "amazing".