Charles Foster, the older brother of artist Benjamin Foster (1852-1926), was born in North Anson, Maine. Traveling to Paris in the 1870s, he trained with Louis Jacquesson De La Chevreuse (1839-1903) at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at the atelier of Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889). Upon his return to America he settled in Farmington, Connecticut where he spent the remainder of his life. Foster taught for a short time at the National Academy of Design and was also a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art. His work consists primarily of landscapes of the Farmington River Valley, which the artist had once referred to as “a beautiful, distinguished valley [with] hills and meadows and forests doing just the right, restful thing” (1).

1. Charles Foster, “A Glance at the Farmington Landscape” in Farmington, Connecticut, the Village of Beautiful Homes (Farmington: Arthur Brandegee and Eddy Smith, 1906), 6.