Bruce Foster studied graphic art and design at UT as a member of the class of 1976. He then worked as a graphic designer and learned his craft of pop-up and movable books by taking pop-up books apart. He began a pop-up book career in 1989 while still juggling a “day job” as graphic designer. The creators of pop-up and movable books are known as “paper engineers,” and Foster is one of few professional paper engineers in the United States.
Foster’s Pop-up Book of Celebrity Meltdowns is for the adult market, but he has also engineered Charles Schultz’s Peanuts: A Pop-Up Celebration and Marjorie Priceman’s Little Red Riding Hood. He has engineered moving books and cards for the Museum of Modern Art and others and has applied his skills to creating the opening sequence for the Disney movie Enchanted. At UT his major professor was Walter (Holly) Stevens. In graduate school he majored in painting, but his works were very sculptural, more like assemblages that used paint as one element.