Anton Otto Fischer Naval Engagement

The marine paintings by Anton Otto Fischer are as authoritative as only a working sailor could make them.

Born in Munich, Germany, but orphaned as a boy, Fischer ran away to sea at 16 and spent eight years before the mast on a variety of sailing ships. Paid off in New York, he stayed to apply for American citizenship and to teach seamanship on the school ship, St. Mary's. He later served as a hand on racing yachts on Long Island Sound and worked as a model and handyman for the illustrator A.B. Frost. When he had saved enough money, he spent two years at the Académie Julian in Paris under Jean-Paul Laurens.

Returning to the United States, Fischer sold his first picture to Harper's Weekly in 1908, around the time he moved to Wilmington to receive critiques from Howard Pyle. Everybody's Magazine sent him the first of several Jack London stories. In 1910, he began a 48–year association with The Saturday Evening Post, which included illustrating serialized characters such as Peter B. Kyne's "Crappy Ricks," Norman Reilly Raine's "Tugboat Annie," Guy Gilpatrick's "Glencannon," as well as serials for Kenneth Robert and Nordhoff and Hall.

In 1942, he was given the rank of Lieutenant Commander as "Artist Laureate" for the United States Coast Guard and was assigned North Atlantic convoy duty on the Coast Guard cutter Campbell during the winter of 1943. The Campbell was disabled during a successful attack on a German U-boat, and Fischer's dramatic paintings of this experience were published by Life magazine. The pictures are now in the Coast Guard Academy at New London, Connecticut.

In 1947, Fischer wrote and illustrated a book about his earlier sailing years, entitled Focs'le Days: A Story of My Youth, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Find original Anton Otto Fischer paintings and prints on 1stDibs.

(Biography provided by The Illustrated Gallery)

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.