Anton Otto Fisher (American)(1882 – 1962)
Anton Otto Fischer was born in Munich, Germany, on February 23, 1882. He was orphaned at an early age and reared in an orphanage. At the age of fifteen he ran away when he was forced to study for the priesthood and became a printer’s devil. He soon left this job and ran away to sea. Fischer was at sea for eight years, except for a fourteen-month period in 1905-06 when he worked for A.B. Frost, a well-known artist, as a model and general handyman. This experience prompted Fischer to take up the study of art seriously, and in October of 1906 he went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens. He studied there for two years, spending his summers painting landscapes in Normandy.
Fischer returned to the United States in January 1908 to take up illustration and landscape painting. Like the other branches of the U.S. armed services, the Coast Guard put artists on the front lines during wartime. Perhaps the most famous of the Coast Guard’s official combat artists was Anton Otto Fischer. During World War II, Fischer was given the title “Coast Guard Artist Laureate.”
Also known for illustrating books such as Moby Dick, Treasure Island, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Anton Otto Fischer died far from his beloved sea in the Catskill Mountains of Woodstock, New York, in 1962 at the age of 80.
Fisher served two years on Fwydyr Castle which is pictured being brought into harbor at sunset (“at the pink moment”).