John Fery

In John Fery's lifetime, more Americans saw his art in person than almost any other artist. Train depots, hotels, universities, ships, travel agencies, and corporations all proudly displayed his magnificent paintings. What was not familiar was the man behind these impressive landscape paintings not only of Glacier National Park but also many other vistas of the American West. This biography makes use of almost 300 illustrations that document a remarkable life while also presenting...
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In John Fery's lifetime, more Americans saw his art in person than almost any other artist. Train depots, hotels, universities, ships, travel agencies, and corporations all proudly displayed his magnificent paintings. What was not familiar was the man behind these impressive landscape paintings not only of Glacier National Park but also many other vistas of the American West. This biography makes use of almost 300 illustrations that document a remarkable life while also presenting the people and times in which Fery lived. Born Johann Levy in 1859 to a well-to-do family from Hungary, Fery was smitten early on with painting the Alps. After the death of both of his parents when he was just a teenager, Johann sought formal art training in Vienna, Munich, and Düsseldorf. By the early 1880s he had changed his name to John Fery and was hired on by German immigrant painters to work on cycloramas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Years later, in 1910 Louis Hill hired John Fery to paint the scenery of Glacier National Park. These paintings were used as promotional tools to entice tourists to ride the train to the park and stay at the chalets and lodges that the Great Northern Railway built from 1910 to 1915. When that highly successful commission ended, Fery headed to California and was hired by the Southern Pacific Railway to paint Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and other views of California and Arizona. Thereafter, Fery wandered the West painting landscapes in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. John and Mary Fery lived for awhile in Salt Lake City where several dealers sold his paintings, and he garnered commissions from a number of patrons to not only paint the Wasatch Mountains, but also the canyon lands of Bryce and Zion. In 1925 Fery once again was hired to paint Glacier country, especially the area around the newly constructed Prince of Wales Hotel (1927) in Canada just north of Glacier National Park. Later, he moved to the Puget Sound area and spent his final days there before dying in 1934.