Myles Birket Foster Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

Myles Birket Foster was born to a Quaker family, his family moved south to London in 1830 when he was five years old His father founded M. B. Foster & Sons a successful beer-bottling company, but, noticing his son's ability for art, his father secured an apprenticeship with the notable wood engraver, Ebenezer Landells.

Upon leaving Landells' workshop, he continued to produce work for the Illustrated London News and the Illustrated London Almanac. He also found work as a book illustrator and, during the 1850s, trained himself to paint in watercolors. His illustrations of Longfellow’s Evangeline and books of verse by other contemporaries were a great success, and he became a successful artist.

Myles Birket Foster traveled widely, painting the countryside in Scotland, the Rhine Valley in Germany, the Swiss lakes, and Italy, especially in Venice. In 1863 he moved to Witley in Surrey where he had a house built. Being friendly with Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, he had the house decorated and furnished in contemporary style.

Even though he had painted many landscape scenes from Scotland to the Mediterranean, it was after moving to Witley that Myles Birket Foster created the works for which he is best known, a sentimentalized view of the contemporary English countryside. Despite the fact that he was criticized for their glorified view of provincial life, they were recognized for their detail and execution. Birket Foster's work was used by Cadburys, the chocolate manufacturer, on the cover of their chocolate boxes from the 1860s onward.

Art Movement: Victorian Classicism.
Artists Influencing Myles Birket Foster: Ebenezer Landells.
He Traveled To Germany, Scotland, Italy, Switzerland.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.