Per Fischer

Per Fischer was born in Otterstad, Skaraborg County, in 1877. After initially studying under Halfdan Stroem in Kristiania in 1896, he continued his training at the Königl. Akademie der bildenden Künste in Munich (1898–99). This was followed by study trips to Italy (1899–1900), Sicily (1905–06), and France (1913).
Fischer’s debut exhibition took place at Valand in Gothenburg in 1902. As a member of the artists’ association De frie, he participated in several group exhibitions, including in Malmö and Copenhagen (1903), Stettin (1904), Riga (1910), and Düsseldorf (1912). He also took part in international exhibitions in Budapest (1906), Rome (1911), Cologne (1912), Leipzig (1914), as well as Buenos Aires and San Francisco (1915).
In the legendary art journal Arktos, published by Harald Brising in 1908–09 through Albert Bonniers Förlag, Fischer’s work was highlighted in an article where he was compared to the Secession—those groups of primarily German and Austrian artists and architects who, in the 1890s and early 1900s, left academies and official organizations to independently advance the modern art movement.
Alongside painting, Per Fischer made a significant contribution to the field of modern original woodcuts. Influenced by Japanese masters such as Hiroshige, he created highly decorative sheets depicting buildings, landscapes, and figures—most notably a suite of compositions with bathing figures. In the late 1910s, Fischer also turned to interior design, working with Nordiska Kompaniet (NK) in Stockholm.
He was a member of Föreningen Original-Träsnitt and the Union Internationale des Beaux-Arts et des Lettres. His works are represented in the Gothenburg Museum of Art and the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.