Foster

Foster, BIRKET, artist, was born at North Shields, of Quaker parentage, 4th February 1825, but from his sixth year was brought up in London. He could draw before he could speak, and, as pupil to Landells, the wood-engraver, from 1841 to 1846, he produced a large number of subjects for wood-engravings, the earliest for Mr and Mrs S. C. Hall's Ireland (1843), and many for the Illustrated London News. Afterwards, in conjunction with John Gilbert, he illustrated Evangeline and many of the poets, his share being dainty poetic landscapes and rustic scenes, nowhere better exemplified than in his Pictures of English Landscape (1862). Between them the two did more than any others to educate popular taste. In 1859 Foster exhibited the first of many water-colours, and in 1860 was elected an associate, in 1861 a member of the Water-colour Society. See Walford's Representative Men (1867), and Huish in Art Journal Supplement (1890).