William Mark Fisher

Landscape with Cattle and Sheep - British Victorian art Pastoral oil painting

Circa 1880

William Mark Fisher studied drawing at the Lowell Institute in Massachusetts during the winter months as a boy. He was fortunate enough to be introduced to George Inness, who Fisher recalls found him to be “…a most promising youth and it was finally arranged I should go and stay with him as a pupil without fees.” Fisher was encouraged to finish his studies in Paris, where he studied under Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre as a pupil until 1864 when Gleyre's health began to fail. During this time, he was heavily influenced by his classmates Monet, Sisley and Renoir, but would never experience the same career trajectory due in large part to his choice to leave France and return home. Upon returning to Boston, he found little market for his works and after a time of struggle decided to return to France in 1871. After a year in France, Fisher left for England, where he would eventually make his permanent residence in Harlow, Essex. There, he found an active market for his work and was an almost immediate success. Fisher is considered one of the first artists to have introduced the impressionistic style to England, where he was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, eventually showing more than 100 works. He was awarded the A.R.A. in 1911 and R.A. in 1919, as well as full membership in the New English Art Club and president of the Essex Club. His works are held in numerous museums, including a large collection in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Tate Gallery in London. When writing about Fisher in S.G.W. Benjamin's Contemporary Art in Europe, the author observed that having found little success in his native land, he had to leave to find appreciation for his work. In his 1893 book Modern Painting, George Moore wrote that Fisher was England's greatest living landscape painter.