Carlyn Feldman Fisher found inspiration for her art in nature, painting landscapes from the beaches of Cape Cod to the North Georgia mountains. Her work was featured in galleries throughout the eastern United States and in numerous one-woman shows. Fisher was also instrumental in organizing the arts community in Atlanta, co-founding the Arts Festival of Atlanta and telling the story of Georgia artists in an Emmy-winning Georgia Public Television series, “Artists of Georgia.”
Carlyn Feldman Fisher, 93, died Feb. 5 following a long illness. She was born on Nov. 5, 1923, in Atlanta, where she spent most of her life. Her daughter, Eve Shulmister of Atlanta, said her mother painted nearly every day of her adult life.
“Mother became interested in painting landscapes in the early 1980s. She would have been in her late 50s,” Shulmister said. “Her earlier work in the late 1960s through the 1970s depicted abstract patterns and organic forms.”
Schulmister said Fisher had a home on Cape Cod and began painting patterns she saw on the beach, then widened her perspective to include tidal pools, beach grasses and rocks. She started to paint mountain landscapes in 1985 when she returned to Georgia.
“Mother began making frequent visits to her sister, who lived in the mountains of North Georgia,” Shulmister continued. “After her sister died in 1987, as a way mourning her death, mother spent three weeks or so during each of four subsequent seasons at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, painting the mountains surrounding the center.”
Her work was exhibited in 16 one-woman shows, and commissions included the Cobb Galleria, Savannah Convention Center and the Atlanta Jewish Community Center.
Fisher was a leader in the Georgia arts community. In addition to co-founding the Arts Festival of Atlanta and co-producing “Artists of Georgia,” she chaired the board of directors at the Hambidge Center. She also wrote a comprehensive survey in 1967 called “The Arts in Georgia,” which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
In an unpublished memoir, Fisher said that in 1953 there was “not a single art gallery in Atlanta.”
She went on to say of the first Arts Festival of Atlanta, “A group of artists with no power, no money, and certainly no prestige decided to change the scene. In the fall of 1954, we put on a backyard art exhibit in Buckhead. Hundreds of people came to see and to buy. Overcome with our success, we planned a larger, more comprehensive exhibit in Piedmont Park which would include the performing arts as well.”
Fisher served as art editor for Atlanta Magazine, Georgia Magazine and The Atlanta Times newspaper, among others. From 1975 to 1985, she lived and worked in New York City and served as executive producer of “Art In Its Soul,” a television documentary about the Provincetown Art Colony that first aired on WGBH in Boston. In 2005, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries. Before she stopped painting in 2002, the subject of her art was trees.
In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Fisher said, “The older I get, the less sense everything else makes, and the more sense nature makes. Trees do what they’re supposed to do. They don’t care whether you know it. They don’t care whether you see it. They’re just doing their job.”
In addition to Shulmister, survivors include grandson Benjamin Yorker and his wife, Carrie Yorker of Charlotte, N.C.; nephews Ted Frey of Dunwoody, Bill Frey of St. Paul, Minn., and Adam Frey of San Francisco; and two great granddaughters, Emma Clay Kate Yorker and Margaret Ann Yorker of Charlotte.
A memorial service is scheduled at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 12, at The Temple, 1589 Peachtree St., Atlanta, GA 30309 with Rabbi Lapidus officiating. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to The Hambidge Center, P.O. Box 339, Rabun Gap, GA 30568.
About the Author
