William Gilbert Foster was born on May 9, 1855 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, United Kingdom, into the family of William Foster, a portrait painter and bookseller from Birkenhead, who moved to Leeds and established a studio when Gilbert Foster was a child.
William Foster was educated at the Leeds Grammar School prior to receiving training at his father's studio.
After finishing his education, William was an art master at Leeds Grammar School and later an under-master at Leeds School of Art. Moreover, he established his own studio and taught pupils privately. In 1890 he purchased a cottage in Runswick Bay and spent most summers there painting. He took some of his most talented students from Leeds School of Art to the area for sketching expeditions and was very supportive of the younger artists.
William Gilbert Foster was living in Halton, Leeds, in the United Kingdom Census 1901, although he's filled in the census just as Gilbert Foster. He exhibited in all the major venues including Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Royal Society of British Artists and at the Royal Academy, where his first work was accepted in 1876. The artist died in 1906. His paintings are currently in the permanent collections of several public art galleries including Kirkleatham, Whitby, Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Hull and Manchester.
Two Girls at a Cottage
Harbour, North Shields
A Life of Shadows
Landscape
Harvest Fields
Coastal view with sailboats
Whispering Eve
The Conway Estuary from Deganwy
Old Tree near Runswick, North Yorkshire
Stockton Walk, Whitby
Boating at dusk
Runswick Fish Wife
Grandfather's Pet
Elloughton Dale, East Riding of Yorkshire
Runswick Bay
Runswick Bay
William Gilbert Foster adhered to the artistic traditions of Romanticism.
William was a senior member of the Staithes Group of artists.
William was married to Nora Mary Foster and had four daughters and a son. One of his daughters, Dorothea Hirst, was a talented artist and, at the age of seventeen, had her first painting accepted by the Royal Academy.
