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Victorian Art in Britain |
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Myles
Birkett Foster
1825 - 1899
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Myles Birkett Foster was born in North Shields in the North East of England, where many of the best people, including the writer, originate. When he was a small child the family moved to London. In his early teens he was apprenticed to a wood engraver, and was involved in the production of blocks for The Illustrated London News, Punch, and other magazines. Following this he became a draughtsman, and set up on his own as a book illustrator. During the 1850s he trained himself to paint in watercolours, and started to exhibit late in the decade, quickly became very successful in this medium. Foster became an Associate of the Old Watercolour Society in 1860, and RWS in 1862. At about this time he started to travel to mainland Europe, initially in the Rhine Valley. He then journeyed to Venice with William Quiller Orchardson (q v), and Fred Walker. He subsequently visited Italy on a number of occasions. As well as his connections with the Royal Watercolour Society, Foster exhibited at the RA for more than 20 years. In 1863 Foster had a house built at
Witley, near Godalming in Surrey. This
house, called The Hill, was furnished with modern decorative art by the now
very prosperous artist. He had tiles designed by his friend Burne-Jones, and
made-of course-by Morris & Co. Burne-Jones
was also commissioned to paint a series of seven pictures about the legend of
St George and the Dragon. This fashionable new home, unhappily not preserved,
became the base of a celebrated artistic salon. Once living in Surrey, Foster
started to produce the pictures for which he is now best remembered. Idealised
paintings of rosy-cheeked children in the beautiful, and idealised,
countryside. These pictures may be
fairly criticised for their sentimentality, but they were detailed, subtle, and
have been praised by many artists and critics over the years, who would not be
expected to be in sympathy with them. They have also, incidentally been faked,
and deliberately wrongly attributed to Foster on many occasions. The artist continued to paint landscapes, some of which were
very well-done, and highly atmospheric. In 1893 Myles Birkett Foster’s health
broke down, the house in Witley was sold, and he moved nearer to London. He
died in 1898.
Death Notice Myles Birkett Foster OBITUARY -The
Times – Same Day
The news of the death of Mr Birkett Foster, which
occurred on Monday at his house at Weybridge, will be received with very
general regret, since, if by no means the greatest, he is certainly the most
popular water-colour artist of our time. He had reached a ripe age, for he was
born in 1825, and yet up to the very last he continued to produce those dainty
little drawings which had commanded the admiration of a very large circle for
nearly half a century. It was only last autumn that we noticed a whole series
of drawings of Scotland which had occupied him in the two or three previous
summers, and which were exhibited with success in London.
He was born at North
Shields, went to school at Hitchin, and thence at the age of 16, entered the
studio of Mr Landells, the wood-engraver. He was soon found, however, to
promise better things in drawing than engraving, and after leaving Mr Landells
he began to illustrate books, and to draw for The
Illustrated London News. He
caught the public taste with his illustrations of several of the sentimental
and simple poems which were in vogue soon after the middle of the century, and
especially with his edition of Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” which was a
considerable success. It was, however, but one of many and Birkett Foster’s
illustrations of Goldsmith, Beattie, and other old poets of the domestic type
that endeared him to the country parsonage and the suburban home.
In
1863, just when the public was being educated by the brothers Dalzeil to look
for something better than the illustrations which had satisfied earlier
generations, Mr Foster published a volume of “English Landscapes,” the text
being written by Tom Taylor in that free and attractive style of which he was
master. Before this in 1860, Birkett Foster had been elected a member of the
Old Water-Colour Society, and at once began to exhibit those neat, pretty
drawings, generally small in scale and always containing some touch of
sentiment dear to the ordinary English mind by which he was ever since known.
They at once became popular, and were soon multiplied by the newly
invented process of chromolithography. Indeed
the charge so commonly made against Birkett Foster that his drawings were like
chromolithographs of the time was an unjust inversion of the truth; in point of
fact, the chromolithographs of the time were intentionally made like Birkett
Foster’s drawings. It is remarkable that up to the very
end-and even when modern English art was passing through a period of great
depression, and many more powerful artists found their works quite unsaleable,
Mr Birkett Foster’s drawings always sold. Some thirty years ago he built
himself a charming house at Witley, in Surrey, of which pretty region he was
one of the discoverers, and, strange as it may seem, the principal decoration
of this house, which abounded in works of art, was a series of large tempera
drawings by a young artist then admired by a few eccentrics, but no others,
Burne-Jones. The house also contained some scenery painted for amateur
theatricals by another admirable artist, but one whose talent had more in
common with Birkett Foster’s, Frederic Walker. A few years ago Mr Foster left
this house, and all those interesting properties were sold at Christie’s.
Mr
Birkett Foster was twice-married-the second time to a sister of the late Mr J D
Watson, the artist.
The following paintings are in our gallery Highland
Cottage |