William Fisher
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Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1891, William Fisher was an American painter and printmaker who spent his early career in New York City before eventually settling in Maine. He studied at the Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science and at Pratt Institute, and after serving as an ambulance driver in World War I, he remained in Europe to study painting in Rome for a year before returning to the United States.
In the 1920's Fisher became a successful illustrator, with his work appearing in Saturday Evening Post, McCalls, Harpers and other popular magazines. In partnership with fellow artist Margaret Kilburn, he opened an art gallery and school on West 8th Street in New York City during the 1930s, and later opened a summer art gallery and school in Kennebunkport, Maine in 1949; after the New York gallery closed around 1952, the couple committed full time to living and working in Kennebunkport. Fisher received over 100 awards during his career, and his work was widely exhibited in Philadelphia, Montclair, Trenton, and Newark, New Jersey, as well as at the Currier Gallery in New Hampshire and the Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk, Maine.
Fisher and Kilburn became familiar and beloved figures in Kennebunkport, teaching generations of local children and participating in numerous exhibits with other artists throughout Maine. His paintings and prints, often depicting New England coastal and rural scenes such as fishing harbors, barns, and streams, continue to circulate through regional auction houses, with realized prices for his work ranging from modest sums into the thousands of dollars, reflecting his standing as a respected mid-century American regionalist artist with a devoted local following in Maine and the greater New York area.
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