Leonard Everett Fisher died this weekend. The noted artist/illustrator, longtime civic volunteer, and one of our last remaining World War II veterans was 4 months shy of his 100th birthday.
He was a Westport icon.
A supremely talentedartist/illustrator, he designed 10 US postage stamps. He illustrated 250 books for young readers, and his works hang in the collections of the Smithsonian, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Yale Art Gallery and New Britain Museum of Art.
Fisher created over 700 paintings and 6,000 scratch boards. He’s listed as one of the 2000 Outstanding Artists and Designers of the 20th Century.
At the 2022 Memorial Day parade, Leonard Everett Fisher was a month shy of his 98th birthday. His uniform still fit. (Photo/Ted Horowitz)
Decades earlier, between 1942 and ’46, he was a topographical mapmaker. He planned, edited and produced maps for campaigns in Italy, France, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the aborted invasion and occupation of Japan.
In 2013 Fisher served as grand marshal of Westport’s Memorial Day parade. He was a proud participant too in Bedford Middle School’s Memorial Day assemblies.
Leonard Everett Fisher at Westport’s 2017 Memorial Day celebration.
More than 70 years after the war, his contributions finally drew national attention.
In 2018 PBS aired “GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II.” Fisher was one of the interviews.
He was in good company. Henry Kissinger, Mel Brooks and other Jewish Americans — some famous, others unknown — shared their experience as part of the 550,000 men and women who fought for their nation, struggled with antisemitism in their ranks, and emerged transformed, to fight for equality and justice at home.
In June of 2019, when Fisher turned 95, the Westport Arts Center invited his friends, fans and family members to celebrate.
It was a fitting tribute. Fisher was a founding member, past president, and current WAC board member.
Leonard Everett Fisher at the Westport Arts Center, for his 95th birthday.
Fisher saw the WAC through many incarnations, from an itinerant organization to its home at the then-closed Greens Farms Elementary School, to its later spot on Riverside Avenue.
Fisher was also a moving force at the Westport Library. He served 3 terms as president, and helped plan the building, on landfill near the Levitt Pavilion.
When he was 93 years young, he turned his attention to a new project: a Westport Artists Museum at Golden Shadows, Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff’s former home at Baron’s South.
For a variety of political reasons, the museum was not built. But, Fisher said at the time, “So long as I put one foot in front of the other, this gives me energy and excitement,” he says.
Today, Westport mourns the passing of Leonard Everett Fisher — war hero, honored artist, neighbor and friend.
For an inspiring 30-minute video interview with Fisher, click here.