John Foster (printer)

John Foster (1648 – September 9, 1681) was an early American woodcut printmaker and letterpress printer who operated a printing shop in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when the colony was still in its infancy. He is credited with printing the first image in British colonial America, from a woodcut he carved of the Puritan minister Richard Mather. He also printed the first map in the colonies, also from a woodcut that he carved. Foster graduated from Harvard University, but was a self-taught pioneer in American printmaking in woodcut, and also learned the art of typography from the Boston printer Marmaduke Johnson. He subsequently printed many works by prominent religious figures of the day in Massachusetts, and for a few years printed and published an annual almanac. His woodcuts were also used for the printing of official seals of the Massachusetts Bay Colony used by the provincial government.