William Gilbert Foster [also known as Gilbert Foster] was born in Manchester, England on 9 May 1855 and was the son of William Foster (1828-1914), a portrait painter, with whom he trained as an artist. He worked primarily as a landscape and genre painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists and Royal Institute of Oil Painters in London; Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; Manchester City Art Gallery; and with the Yorkshire Society of Artists of which he was a Council Member and Vice-President. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in 1893. Foster painted many landscapes around the coastal area of Yorkshire and is associated with the Staithes School.