Background
Alvan Fisher was born in Needham, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, the son of Aaron and Lucy (Stedman) Fisher and a brother of John Dix Fisher. His father and his grandfather, Captan Ebenezer Fisher, both served in the Revolution.
Alvan Fisher was born in Needham, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, the son of Aaron and Lucy (Stedman) Fisher and a brother of John Dix Fisher. His father and his grandfather, Captan Ebenezer Fisher, both served in the Revolution.
Until after the age of eighteen he worked in a country store but, finally, against the advice of friends, he decided to be an artist and became a pupil of John R. Penniman, with whom he remained about two years.
Penniman was an excellent ornamental painter, but the mechanical method he imparted to his pupil proved a great disadvantage to the latter. It was years before Fisher could break away from the fixed early habits.
His life as an artist began in 1814 when, for a year, he undertook to paint portraits at a very cheap rate. He then turned his attention to barnyard scenes, portraits of animals, and pictures of rural life, a field rarely touched at that time, and therefore comparatively profitable.
In 1819 he decided to undertake portrait-painting and this finally became his specialty. Alvan Fisher is said to have been the first landscape-painter who hung out a professional sign in Boston, where he had a studio on Washington Street near Summer (Gerry, post).
In 1825 he visited England, France (where he spent some time in study), and Italy, and enjoyed a trip through Switzerland on foot. Upon returning to the United States he established himself as a portrait-painter in Boston where he lived many years.
Fisher died in Dedham at the age of seventy-one.
Fie produced many excellent likenesses, notably that of the phrenologist Spurzheim, done from recollection. Among the works which he himself mentioned in a letter to Dunlap (post) are: “The Escape of Sargeant Champ”; “Mr. Dustin Saving Children from the Savages”; “The Freshet”; and “Lost Boy. ”
An interesting feature of his work was the painting of incidents in his landscapes. He rarely painted from nature but depended upon a good memory and fragmentary notes and sketches.
On June 3, 1827, he married at Dedham, Massachusetts, Lydia, daughter of Abner and Martha (May) Ellis, by whom he had one son.