Myles Birkett Foster

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Myles Birkett Foster was a popular watercolour artist in the Victorian period. He was born in 1825 at North Shields, England but his family moved south when he was still a child. He was schooled at Hitchin, Hertfordshire^[1] and, at the age of 16, was apprenticed to a wood engraver, Mr Landells^[2], producing printing blocks for various magazines, including Punch and the Illustrated London News. He left Mr Landells' employ to gain work as an illustrator, and it was the latter magazine for which he then went on to produce a number of illustrations. He also found work as a book illustrator and, during the 1850s, trained himself to paint in watercolours. His illustrations of Longfellow’s "Evangeline" and books of poetry by other contemporaries were a great success^[3], and he quickly became a successful artist in watercolours. Birkett Foster became an Associate of the "Old" Watercolour Society (Later the Royal Watercolour Society) in 1860^[4] and exhibited at the Royal Academy for more than 2 decades. He travelled to mainland Europe, painting initially in the Rhine Valley and Venice. In 1863 Birkett Foster published a volume of “English Landscapes,” with text by Tom TaylorThe Times Wednesday 29th March 1899. The same year he moved to Witley, near Godalming in Surrey where he had a house ("The Hill") built, which he furnished in contemporary style with tiles and paintings by his friend Edward Burne-Jones and Morris and Company^[5]. He painted great numbers of landscape scenes from Scotland to the Mediterranean, but it was after moving to Surrey that Birkett Foster produced the works for which he is best known - a sentimentalised view of the contemporary English countryside. Although criticised for their idealised view of rural life, they were recognised for their detail and execution. He became ill in 1893 and moved to Weybridge. He continued painting, but died on 27th March 1899. His obituary in The Times referred to him as "certainly the most popular water-colour artist of our time"^[6]. The funeral took place at Witley.