Summer

Herbert Wilson Foster was born in Endon, Staffordshire. He attended Hanley School of Art before continuing his studies in London, Belgium and France. His paintings of rural and domestic subjects were exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1873 and 1899. In 1893 he accepted a teaching position at the Nottingham School of Art, where his pupils included Laura Knight and Harold Knight. Works by him are in the collections of the Minton archives; the Wisbech & Fenland Museum; Leicester Art Gallery; Rushcliffe Council and Nottingham Castle Museum. In addition to his work as a painter he worked as a porcelain painter, working at one point on the tile panels in the Victoria & Albert Museum. This head of a girl was probably intended for a painted ceramic platter, possibly for Minton, and would have been one from a set of the four seasons.