부산대학교 도서관

(bapt Dorchester, MA, Dec 10, 1648; d Dorchester, Sept 9, 1681). American printer and printmaker. He was the son of early settlers in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College in 1667; he then taught in Dorchester (now South Boston) and about 1670 began making the earliest pictorial woodcuts in English-speaking North America. In 1675 he became the first letterpress printer in Boston and the second in New England. Foster’s woodcut Richard Mather (c. 1670; Cambridge, MA, Harvard U., Houghton Lib.) is among the earliest of American portraits and perhaps the first in any medium by an artist born in English-speaking America. His Map of New-England, ‘White Hills’ version (1677; Boston, MA Hist. Soc.), which he adapted from a manuscript source (untraced), was the first map to be cut, printed and published north of Mexico. Despite their primitive quality, Foster’s prints are strongly designed and show a keen awareness of Baroque style in the graphic arts. In addition to his work as a printer and printmaker, Foster took an interest in medicine, music, astronomy, meteorology, mathematics and possibly painting....