Eric Forstmann

Eric Forstmann was born in 1962 and raised in Warren, Connecticut. His mother kept Forstmann and his three brothers busy by supplying them with art supplies. "Drawing was a spinout from the roar that was our general family activity,” Forstmann said, in an interview with Berkshirestyle Magazine.

“Warren was a very interesting place to grow up,” Forstmann said. “It’s a small place but it had an extraordinary number of people in the arts – directors, writers, actors, and painters. At a young age I was aware that you could have a life in the arts and be successful.” Forstmann was also inspired by a TV profile about Edward Hopper that he saw when he was fifteen. He said that the works of Hopper made him feel that is was also possible for him to be a successful  artist.

After graduating from Wamogo Regional School, Forstmann attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

His first success as an artist was painting trompe l’oeil furniture, which he sold on Madison Avenue.

Forstmann has four children and stayed home for eight years to care for them. He said that he was busy with diaper changes and other distractions and had little time for preparatory drawings. “Pretty much under every painting,” he said, “ there’s a very decent brush drawing of any subject. There’s a basic contour line drawing under the painting.”

He alternates time in his studio, painting everyday objects, and leaving his studio to create plein-air landscapes.

Forstmann has had solo exhibits at at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, the Evansville Museum of Arts, History, and Science in Evansville Indiana, the Mattatuck Museum of Waterbury, Connecticut and Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia.

His works have been included in exhibits at the Naples Museum of Art in Naples, Florida and at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Forstmann was granted a Residency at the Vermont Studio Center and was elected President of Five Points Center for the Visual Art in Torrington, Connecticut.

His work has been showcased in Architectural Digest, ARTnews and New England Home. Litchfield Magazine named him one of the “25 Most Influential People” in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Collectors who have added Forstmann’s work to their private collections include Meryl Streep and Don Gummer, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening and George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth.