This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Austria, John Fery earned a strong reputation for dramatic
paintings of western mountain landscape in the United States.
Glacier National Park in northwest Montana was a popular subject for
him.
He was raised in a prominent, wealthy family that lived on
an estate about nineteen miles northeast of Salzburg. His mother
was Hungarian, and his father was born in Bohemia. S ome sources have
written that he studied art in Dusseldorf, Germany with Peter Jansen,
and also in Munich, Venice and Karlsruhe. But his "name does not
appear in the records of the major art schools in any of these places,
nor is there any record of his name at either the Vienna or Budapest
academies." (Merrill 26) It is possible, however, that he
received private instruction, and because of the sophistication of his
painting, sources think it unlikely that he was self taught.
An
early interest in wilderness scenery led him to painting American
landscapes and hunting scenes. In the mid 1880s, he came to
America and lived in the German community in Milwaukee, and then in
1886, brought his family to the United States. His wife, Mary Rose
Kraemer (1862-1940), was born in Switzerland, and they had one child
born near Munich and two others born in the United States. From
1886 to 1888, they lived in New York, and by 1890, Fery had made his
first trip West.
He visited Yellowstone Park in 1891, and
indicated in his writings that he had been there even earlier.
From 1892 to 1893, he led European nobility on hunting expeditions to
the American Northwest, made possible by the completion of the Northern
Pacific Railroad. The group's itinerary included Lake Michigan,
Arizona with the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, California, Oregon and
Wyoming. In 1895, he led a second expedition, and these ventures
launched his career as a painter of the American West.
During
the late 1890s, he lived with his family in a cabin near Jackson Lake,
Wyoming, but by 1900 was in Duluth, Minnesota, where he and
Austrian-born painter Feodor von Luerzer painted mural decorations for
the Fitger Brewery tap room. (In 1914, the murals were moved to
the Pickwick Restaurant in Duluth, where they remained for many years).
By
1903, Fery was in Milwaukee where he stayed until 1911, when he moved
to St. Paul, Minnesota until 1918. His greatest patron became
Louis Hill, owner of the Great Northern Railway and a resident of St.
Paul. Hill commissioned Fery to paint scenes of Glacier Park and
other scenic landscapes for placement in their hotels and railroad
stations. Over the years the Railroad purchased a total of 362
works, and many of these paintings were large-scale, panoramas.
In
1914, after several years of painting in Glacier Park, Fery did a
series of about twelve oil paintings of Yellowstone for advertising
purposes for the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Itinerant, Fery
seems never to have settled in one place for very long. From 1919
to 1923, he was living in Salt Lake City, Utah where he painted many
landscapes, especially of Zion Canyon. Then he returned to
Milwaukee until 1929, when he moved to Orcas Island near Bellingham,
Washington. That same year a fire took all his possessions
including thousands of sketches and many paintings. After that he
moved to Everett, Washington where he died five years later.
About
150 of his paintings have been found after his death, and the largest
group are of Glacier National Park, but some are from California,
Arizona and New Mexico and Wisconsin. One is from Venice, Italy
and one from Bavaria. Most of the paintings are in private
collections but the Burlington Northern Railway, successor to the Great
Northern Railway, has work by Fery in the collection as does the Church
of the Latter Day Saints Museum in Salt Lake City. In 1974, an
exhibition of his work was held at the Milwaukee Public Library, and in
1975 at the Boise Gallery of Art in Boise, Idaho.
Sources:
Peter Merrill, German American Artists in Early Milwaukee
Edan Hughes, Artists in California, 1786-1940
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Peter Hassrick, Drawn to Yellowstone
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in in Austria on March 25, 1859, John Fery was the scion of a
wealthy and aristocratic family. He was educated and studied art
in Europe. He came to the U.S. in 1886 and led European nobility
on hunting expeditions in the Northwest.
An itinerant artist, he lived and painted in Oregon (employee of the Oregon Journal),
California, Arizona, Utah, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. From 1910 to
1929, he created promotional paintings for the Great Northern Railroad.
He then lived in Everett, WA until his death on Sept. 10, 1934.
Exhibitions: World's Columbian Expo (Chicago), 1893; Calif. State Fair,
1893; Milwaukee Public Library, 1974 and Boise Gallery, 1975
(retrospectives). | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Boise Gallery of Art; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 9-15-1934 (obituary). | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
Biography from Manitou Galleries:
| John
Fery was born in 1859 into a prominent and wealthy Austrian family, and
grew up on his father's estate, located between Linz and Salzburg. He
studied art in Vienna with Gripenkerl, in Dusseldorf with Peter Jansen,
and in Karlsruhe with Schwenlehr.
Fery also studied in Munich.
He declined a permanent position at the famous Dusseldorf Academy,
preferring to come to the United States to practice his art and to
follow his interest in wilderness scenery.
Fery came to America
in 1886 and he lived on the Eastern seaboard for about five years. He
quickly established himself as a successful painter of American
landscape and hunting scenes, living for several years at Lake George
and in the Catskill Mountain region, and later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
and New Jersey. Around 1890 he returned briefly to Europe.
It
appears that the result of his return to Europe was the organization of
a hunting party led by Fery, which spent the years 1892 and 1893
traveling through the Midwest and far West United States in search of
wilderness scenery and wild game. An undated article from the Milwaukee
Journal provides a glimpse of the tour: "John Fery, a native of
Hungary(sic), and as such a sportsman of the word's best meaning,
conceived the idea, of organizing a party of lovers of the chase,
selected form the European gentry and members of the aristocracy, for
hunting trip in the virgin hunting grounds of the Northern Rockies of
America, which the completion of the Northern Pacific (Railroad) had
brought into the lime-light of European notice at that time. A call
issued to that effect by Mr. Fery in Hunter's Journals was soon
answered by Count Bleuchar, by Count Zepplin, Harry Meisenback,
inventor of the half-tone process, and four other persons who together
with Mr. Fery made up a party of eight huntsmen and started for the
U.S. in 1893."
The itinerary of the group included Lake
Michigan, New Mexico, Arizona, the Grand Canyon of Colorado,
California, Oregon and Wyoming. Fery published an article recounting
his experiences in the European Hunter's Journal under the title "Eine
Jagt in Wyoming." He led a second expedition to the West in 1895, and
these adventures were the beginning of his career as a painter of the
Western landscape.
Fery's greatest patron was the Great
Northern Railroad. He was commissioned to do paintings of the scenery
along the railroad's route through the West, particularly in Glacier
National Park. He was an important artistic stimulant in the creation
of Glacier National Park, just as Moran had been earlier in the
creation of Yellowstone National Park and Grand Canyon of the Colorado
Park.
Fery died in Everett, Washington in 1934.
Many of
Fery's paintings were on a grand scale, as large as 10 by 12 feet in
size, but his smaller works are still sought by collectors for their
vivid rendering of the Western landscape.
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Biography from Braarud Fine Art:
| Born in Austria in 1859, John Fery studied art in Vienna, Düsseldorf, and Munich. He conducted hunting expeditions to the Pacific Northwest for wealthy Europeans before settling in the United States in 1886. He lived for various lengths of time in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin.
While traveling and painting in the Rocky Mountains, Fery impressed members of the Hill family, developers of the Great Northern Railway Company, who hired him to paint pictures dramatizing the beauties of the region. Many of the more than three-hundred works he completed hung in station houses, hotels, and lodges served by the railroad.
The Great Northern Railway Company was not only an important patron for Fery and other artists, but as has been noted by William Gerdts in Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting 1710-1920 and others, its stations and hotels served in a real sense as the first "art galleries" in the West, at a time before traditional art institutions were even envisioned in the region.
Since that time, arts institutions in the West have grown in number and prominence. Among the many holding examples of Fery's work are the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, the Charles M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, the Boise Art Museum, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
Fery settled on Orcas Island, Washington in 1929, only to see his studio and much of his work destroyed the same year by fire. He died in Everett, Washington in 1934. |
Biography from Thomas Nygard Gallery:
| John Fery (1859-1934)
John Fery was born in 1859 in Hungary to an aristocratic family. From what little is known about his life, scholars have determined that Fery studied in Europe before coming to the United States. He spent time under Peter Jansen at the famed Dusseldorf Academy in Germany.
His transition to the U.S. was gradual at first. Initially he led European nobility on hunting trips throughout the Northwest. It was during these trips between 1892 and 1893 that he first painted the landscape of the American West.
Fery exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1983; Everett Drama League, 1930, 1931; Regional Painters of Puget Sound, 1870-1920, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington, 1986.
In about 1900, Fery worked in Utah painting “many large oils of the natural wonders of the West.” He lived and worked in many western locations, some which were Minnesota, Arizona, Washington, Oregon and California.
One of Fery’s more important contributions is that he aided in the creation of Glacier National Park through his paintings. Commissioned by the Great Northern Railroad, he painted the scenery along its route and in Glacier National Park in order to help attract people and attention to that area. He also worked for the Oregon Journal contributing many wonderful pieces to that publication.
John Fery died at the age of seventy-five in Everett, Washington.
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Biography from Kramer Gallery, Inc.:
| A prolific artist of expansive mountain views and Western wildlife, John Fery studied art in the academies of Vienna, Munich, and Dusseldorf before coming to Milwaukee in 1883. There he worked briefly as a panorama painter before returning to Germany. Fery came back to the United States, where he traveled and painted in the western states during the following decade.
At the invitation of Louis W. Hill, president of the Great Northern Railway, Fery painted over 300 vistas of mountain scenery along the road’s tracks across Montana. His paintings of the mountains, lakes, and wildlife of Glacier National Park, some approaching billboard size, are Fery’s most famous and characteristic work.. Fery’s purple-tinged palette and broad, thick brushstrokes are as distinctive as his concentration on Rocky Mountain views and wildlife.
Written and submitted by Thomas O'Sullivan, museum curator and freelance writer.
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