Reflections of the Past

"The Father of A Thousand Girls", HARRISON FISHER (1875-1934) showed an early interest in drawing and from the age of six was instructed by his father, Hugh Antoine Fisher, a landscape painter. When his family moved from Brooklyn to San Francisco, Harrison studied there at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. At sixteen, Fisher had begun to make drawings for the San Francisco Call and later for the Examiner.Soon after returning to New York, Fisher sold two sketches to Puck Magazine which also hired him as a staff artist. He became noted for his ability to draw beautiful women, and his Fisher Girls became rivals to those of Gibson and Christy. The American Girl was a favorite theme for the magazine then, and Fisher did cover illustrations for most of them. For many years he was under an exclusive contract to do covers for Cosmopolitan, but eventually he restricted himself to painting portraits including many actresses and theatrical personalities. - Walt Reed