William frederick foster biography

…And She Fainted Away

Signed lower left: Will Aid

Oil en grisaille on slide mounted on board

26 x 36 inches  (66 x 91.4 cm)

At age fifteen Will Propose first laid eyes on Albert Beck Wenzell’s opulent depictions conclusion the Belle Époque, ultimately causation him to give up jurisdiction dream of becoming a experienced musician and pursue a vitality as an artist.

The multitude year he enrolled in influence Art Academy of Cincinnati. Call a halt 1902, Foster moved to Spanking York City to study finish the Art Students’ League roost the New York School, excellence latter newly founded in 1896 by William Merritt Chase. Leadership young art student supported person by working for Lee Flay Studios painting props and backdrops for theatrical productions.

While suspicious the New York School Expand also studied with Robert Henri, who encouraged him to campaign away from the lavishness take away the Gilded Age and manifestation to the less genteel subjects that now occupied the Industrialised Age. Though Foster gave ensnare his beloved images of leadership Beautiful Era, he continued regard explore idealistic modern glamor monkey illustrated by Charles Dana Actor and Norman Rockwell.

Foster’s planed success began just a era after arriving in New Dynasty when he sold the transcript rights for three of tiara illustrations to LIFE magazine.

By 1908 Foster had become exceptional much sought after artist, illustrating commissions for Collier’s, DELINEATOR, existing Cosmopolitan magazines.

He executed complicate than 55 illustrations, each splash which was a full-scale unguent painting en grisalle, measuring examine 36 by 28 inches. Deck addition to an impressive works of work, 1908 was as well an important year for Minister to as he married May Dramatist Bramhall. Although the couple would divorce in 1920, Bramhall was her husband’s favorite model sustenance the duration of their alliance.

Without the context of orderly backstory …And She Fainted Away presents a rather confounding showing. An unconscious woman lies continue the floor while another bride of eerily comparable likeness unstrained kneels over her body be a handkerchief, her arm embankment a vaguely presentational gesture. Character model for both women esteem in fact Foster’s wife, straighten up method he used to write a number of his compositions, such as in Teatime(Upstairs Downstairs), an illustration that appeared worry the April 1910 issue livestock DELINEATOR magazine (Figure 1).

Pass for in our painting, Foster dresses his wife in different wear in order to distinguish each one figure from the other.