Ethel Fisher (1923-2017) carved a distinctive path through the American art scene over seven decades. Her journey began with studies at the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Austin, under mentors such as Everett Spruce, Howard Cook, and William McVey, and continued at Washington University in St. Louis with Fred Conway. Fisher's formative years at The Art Students League of New York were under the tutelage of Morris Kantor, Robert Beverly Hale, and Will Barnet, where she honed her craft and integrated herself into the vibrant art world of New York City.

Fisher's professional career took flight in the 1950s with a style that initially embraced early modernist styles of abstraction. Her work during this period featured impressionistic elements and organic shapes that often referenced architecture; her influences ranged from European Old Masters to Pre-Columbian and Byzantine artifacts.

The early 1960s marked a pivotal shift in Fisher's career as she moved towards figurative work after a tour of Europe and a move back to New York City. Fisher's return to New York led her to win a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award for Painting in 1965. In the 1970s, Fisher transitioned again, this time to architectural paintings, drawing from her early interest in the ornate facades of buildings she remembered from her youth in Galveston. These works, while still adhering to a certain realism, were personalized interpretations that combined remembered and invented colors with expressive brushwork.

Ethel Fisher's legacy is vast, spanning a diverse range of subjects and styles, from abstract art to portraiture and architectural paintings. Her work is held in notable collections including: The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD), the Crocker Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, and many others.

Ethel Fisher (1923-2017) was a painter who lived in Pacific Palisades, California.

Ethel Fisher was born in Galveston, Texas in 1923. She studied art at the University of Houston, University of Texas, and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After college, she moved to New York City and attended The Art Students League on scholarship from 1943-1946. In New York, she studied with painter Will Barnet, Morris Kantor, and Robert Beverly Hale, and befriended many people in the art world.

She married Gene Fisher and their first daughter Sandra was born. Sandra also became a painter and later married artist R. B. Kitaj.

Fisher and her family moved to Miami in 1948 where her daughter Margaret was born. Upon her divorce, Fisher traveled in Europe for about a year before returning to New York City in the early 1960s, where she continued to paint and maintained 2 studios for her artwork. She married art historian Seymour Kott in 1963.

In 1970, Fisher and her husband moved to Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, California.

Throughout her career as a painter, Ethel Fisher has had solo and group exhibitions at galleries in Havana, Cuba; West Palm Beach, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; New York City, New York; and San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and continues to paint. In 2003, Fisher had solo exhibit of portraits at Platt Gallery in Los Angeles.

Source/Submitted by: Robert Sommers (gleaned from the internet)