Design and Art Australia Online

cartoonist, painter and illustrator, was born in Ophir, NSW. He studied under Anivetti at the NSW Academy of Art from 1875 until 1879 (when Anivitti went home to Rome and the Academy folded). He won the only gold medal awarded to a student and, with Frank Mahony , a silver medal. Then he went overseas and studied at the Westminster School of Art in London and at l’Académie Julian and Colarossi’s in Paris. From 1883 he exhibited landscapes and figure studies with the Art Society of NSW (later Royal Art Society of New South Wales), of which he was a member. He contributed to the Illustrated Sydney News in the 1880s when it was controlled by Town and Country Journal . He also contributed to the latter, e.g. 24 December 1881 (p.1281), signed 'A.J.F.’, and Christmas in Queensland 13 December 1890, 35. With Monte Scott he was a staff artist on the Brisbane Boomerang in 1888-91, e.g. Mac’s Good To His Friends./ “We’ll Make Beer Cheap, Old Man. What Does Bread Matter?”’ 20 October 1888, 18; Women Aren’t Always Angels 2 February 1889, 18.

A.J. Fischer is best known for his 1890s Bulletin cartoons, e.g. A Weedy Growth 31 January 1891, 12; On Circuit. '“Know anyone about here likely to give a fellow a week or a month’s work?”/ “Well, I heard as the Judge was givin’ some blokes 'ard labour yesterday in the next township”’ 1894 (ill. Rolfe, 91); black devil illustration to a poem by Julian Sake, Masks 8 December 1894, 15; The Two Essentials. 'Reporter: “How will this do for a leader?”/ Editor: “Will it offend any advertisers?”/ R.: “No.”/ E.: “Is it libellous?”/ R.: “I don’t think so.”/ E.: “Then, run it in”’ 1895. Others include: A Sufficient Explanation. 'Lady passenger [at railway station with big bag] “Time is up, and I can’t find a porter. Will you kindly help me get this into the carriage?”/ He (with some indignation): “Excuse me, madame, but – er – I am a Member of Parliament.”’ 1896 (ill. Rolfe, 65); He Took “Bafe”’ (re English visitor at Sunday dinner at the bush hotel in Kurrumburragoobah) 1896 (Rolfe, 90 ) ; Island Experience. 'Little girl (to visitor who is relating his adventures in the South Seas): “Grandpa’s been on the islands, too.”/ Visitor (looking toward the old gentleman with the Botany Bay limp): “Where, my dear?”/ Little girl: “Cockatoo! ain’t you, Grandpa?”’ 1896 (ill. Rolfe, 75) cf Phil May and 1888 Bulletin convict book.

Fischer drew several anti-British jokes, e.g. Suspicious 1897, re son of a duke whose ancestry is in doubt because he actually pays his way (Rolfe, 92); Call It English and It’s Welcome 1897, re visitor to bush home (Rolfe, 93); 1897 English newchum tutor/beggar. Other cartoons include Going into a Decline 1898 (poet in editor’s office) signed 'A.J. Fischer del/ J.E. Elvin(?) inv.’ (Rolfe, 163) and The Beautiful in Art. 'Lady Artist (to Domain “dosser,” who has offered to sit as model): “You will do splendidly – come this day week. In the meantime, don’t wash yourself, and don’t get your hair cut!”’ 6 March 1897 (ill. Watkins).

The 1898 Grafton Gallery 'Exhibition of Australian Art in London’ included: A.J. Fischer, The Bulletin Office, Sydney, cat. 274, 'Three Drawings’, lent by the 'Bulletin’ Newspaper Co., Sydney. He helped illustrate Steele Rudd’s On Our Selection , first published as a serial in the Bulletin then as a book in 1899; his 1899 drawing of a dead horse with crows hovering around was also used in some editions of On Our Selection and published in Steele Rudd’s Book . The original (ML Px*D463, f.12) is one of eight 1899-1900 originals by Fischer in the SLNSW Bulletin collection. Another (f.23), In the Never-Never – A Man with a stake in the Country , shows a tombstone inscribed: 'This coves dead his name wus Bill Maloney better knone as Boosey Bill and we his ersociates irect this ere monument as a token of respict to his sakrid memry may his sole rest in piece’, signed 'A.J.Fischer del./ Meteor [who presumably contributed the idea]’.

In c.1900 Fischer was apparently a member of the final Charterisville group in Melbourne (Moore p.80: says “Alf Fisher the pastellist”). Later he contributed to Rowlandson’s Success 1-2 (1907-8) and The Comic Australian , e.g. little comic illustrations to straight news items 7 October 1911. He illustrated several anthologies and books for the NSW Bookstall Company, including Charles de Boos’s Settler and Savage (6 full-page illustrations, 1906), a re-issue of Fifty Years Ago (1867), The Selector: A romance of an immigrant by James Green (12 full-page illus., 1907) and Rung In: A novel of the turf by Arthur Wright (eight full-page illus. by Fischer, cover by Percy Spence , 1912). He is said to have also drawn a number of Bookfellow covers including no.2 (18 February 1899) featuring a girl undergraduate (ill. Butler, Poster , 27).

Les Tanner ( CAB , p.45) wrote that Alf Fisher [sic] 'was hired by Farmer & Co.’, 'who advertised that the public should come to their store and see the man who was paid £40 a week in 1913’. (His name was often spelt 'Fisher’.)

Images: The Boomerang published Fischer’s signed 'If She Wants to Vote Why Shouldn’t She?’ on 16 March 1889, 10, a policeman with a baton labelled 'Law’ attacking a women with two kiddies and a baby, while a drunk and other repulsive males smugly enter a 'Polling Booth’ besides which is a notice: {caps} 'vote for the repeal of local option/ vote for the maintenance of the C.D. Act/ Vote for the tax on bread/ Vote for the Privileges of Man/ and/ Blank the Women’. But the paper was normally anti-suffrage. Nor was the artist was unreservedly feminist; a month earlier the Boomerang had published Fischer’s Women aren’t always angels. '“As fast as he shovelled up the gold she passed it through a sieve that turned it into gay dresses and bonnets and jewellery and other little attractions.” – Lucinda Sharpe’ (2 February 1889, 18).

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007