Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, William Fett was a painter in abstract, surrealist style of landscapes, often based on scenes of Mexico. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1941. From there he undertook several extended visits to Mexico in making the acquaintance of expatriate Surrealist artists who had escaped the unhealthy turmoil of European upheavals by moving to that country.

Some of his Mexican watercolors were accorded a one-man show at Durlacher Brothers Gallery in New York on October 5, 1943. The positive response to the work resulted in acquisition of work by the New York Museum of Modern Art. In 1946, William Fett received appointment as teacher at the Washington Univ...