Pete Foerster Obituary, Death – My partner, Peter Forster, who died at the age of 86, was a top British wood engraver during the last 50 years. He was a rebel in a relatively traditional medium; his work was marked by caustic and irreverent wit, and he frequently used colour when monochromatic was the norm. Peter Forster, the first child of Mabel (née Fairy) and Harold Forster, was born in Fulham and had a peripatetic upbringing due to his RAF officer father’s frequent moves.

Following Bedford Modern School, he went on to study at Luton School of Art, where he learned wood engraving from Mary Maddick, and then at the Ruskin School in Oxford (with the help of John Piper). His national duty with the RAF came next. Peter subsequently spent a miserable year teaching art at Bedford School, where he and the headmaster agreed on only one thing: he was not cut out for teaching. Following that, I did freelance book illustration. Prior to 1967, he was connected in some capacity with gay liberation.

He took a job designing guide books in the Department of the Environment (Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings) in 1964, enticed by the possibility of financial security. As an awkward square peg in the public service, he returned to freelance work as a wood engraver and printmaker in 1985. He had a lifelong passion of literature, and the Folio Society publishing business gave him the freedom to express it by illustrating a number of works, including Shakespeare plays and other classics, of which Wuthering Heights and Romola showed him at his best.

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