Mountain Pass by Orr Cleveland Fisher (IA/CA, 1885-1974), oil on canvas, signed front and back, circa 1930s-1940s, framed - 47 1/2" x 37 1/2"
 
Fisher was born in Iowa to a hard working farm family. It was plowing fields that started Fisher's interest in how the earth and art interact. Not destined for costly schools, his art education was limited mainly to correspondence courses for drawing, cartooning, design, and illustration, and a few courses at the Cummings School of Art in Des Moines, Iowa. He spent college at Drake University doing illustrations and cartoons for local papers, and would later work for the WPA painting post office murals during the 1940s. He purportedly studied under Grant Wood and lived and worked at a Woodstock, NY artist colony. Never just an artist, Fisher applied himself in other trades, such as working as a signal man for railroads and as a teamster driving a six horse freight wagon across Wyoming. He even has a patent for an automatic train whistle. He lived his last decades in California.