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Myles Birket Foster was a celebrated English watercolourist and illustrator. Born in North Shields, he moved to London as a child and became an apprentice of the wood engraver Ebenezer Landell designing engraving blocks. During that time Foster provided designs for Punch and the Illustrated London News and was later employed as a draughtsman by Henry Vizetelly, when he illustrated Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline and Samuel Roger’s Italy. As an established illustrator, he contributed to the Illustrated London Almanac and numerous books including poetry by Longfellow, Sir Walter Scott and John Milton.
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In the 1850s Birket Foster travelled extensively on the continent, visiting Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, especially the romantic scenery of the Rhine. Several visits to Italy to make drawings of Venice followed, commissioned by politician Charles Seely.
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Towards the end of that decade, he turned more and more to painting in watercolour. In 1859 he exhibited for the first time at the Old Watercolour Society, became an associate in 1860 and was awarded with a full membership in 1862. Between 1859 and 1881 he also exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy.
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In 1863 he built an elaborate house at Witley near Godalming and it is for the Surrey country side that he is best known today. Meticulously painted images of Victorian life are witness to his astonishing technical skill. In 1893, he became very ill. He was forced to sell his house and move to a smaller property in Weybridge, Surrey where he painted until his death in 1899.
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