Myles Birket Foster
Myles Birket Foster (born February 4, 1825 in North Shields , Northumberland , † March 27, 1899 in Weybridge , Surrey ) was a popular English draftsman , illustrator and painter of the Victorian era .
Life
Foster was the youngest of seven children in a Quaker family who settled in London in 1830 . He received his first artistic training from the wood cutter Ebenezer Landells . In 1846 he started his own business as a book illustrator. His works from this period include a series of realistic scenes from English country life. The illustrations for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic "Evangeline" (1850) were followed by those for works by William Wordsworth , Oliver Goldsmith , Thomas Gray and other English and American poets. In doing so, Foster developed a preference for the scenic element and the sea.
In the 1850s, Foster was commissioned to paint various views of the Rhine , which appeared in two publications, The Rhine and its Pictorial Scenery (1856) and The Upper Rhine (1857), which helped him establish himself as a painter. He painted many of his other landscapes on trips to Scotland , Switzerland and Italy ; Various cityscapes were also created in Venice .
In the 1860s Foster turned more and more to watercolor painting . In 1862 he became a member of the Royal Watercolor Society , where he exhibited 332 of his works. He was also represented in the years between 1869 and 1881 with 13 of his oil paintings at exhibitions of the Royal Academy of Arts .
Foster's depictions of domestic and rural life, and especially the world of children, found widespread use. From 1860 on, his pictures, together with those of other artists, adorned the boxes of the chocolate manufacturer Cadbury .
Illustration from "The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"
The old water mill
Lake Como
Highland scenery
family
His son, Myles Birket Foster jun. (1851–1922), was an organist and composer. He wrote cantatas for children's choir and a History of the Philharmonic Society (London 1913).
literature
- Marcus Halliwell: Highland Landscapes - Paintings of Scotland in the 19th Century. Garamond Publishers Ltd, London, 1990, ISBN 1-85583-001-9 , p. 42.
Web links
- The Victorian Web
- MB Foster biography anmd works (The Border Collie Museum)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cloke, Marsden, & Mooney. Handbook of rural studies (Sage Pubs. Ltd., 2006), p. 141.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Foster, Myles Birket |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British draftsman, illustrator and painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 4, 1825 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | North Shields , Northumberland |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 27, 1899 |
| Place of death | Weybridge , Surrey |