Ed Fisher, my partner, who has died aged 79, was an artist and illustrator who, though he never made much money from his work, continued to draw and paint throughout his life. Friends treasured his detailed images of houses and trees, and his finely-drawn Christmas cards. More recently his work reached a wider audience when together we produced five books, including Folk Tales for Bold Girls (2019) and North Wales Folk Tales for Children (2016), which I wrote and he illustrated.
Four generations of artists preceded Ed in his family; his grandfather, Josh Fisher, made a living as a landscape artist. Ed was born in Wallasey, on Merseyside, to George Fisher, who owned an electrical fitting business in Liverpool, and his wife, Thelma (nee Edwards). When Ed was an infant the family were evacuated to North Wales during the second world war and afterwards settled in the village of Llanfairfechan, where his mother turned their home into a guest house and his father pursued an artistic career about as financially unsuccessful as Ed’s was to be later.
As a youngster, and in later life, Ed was passionate about Wales, considering himself Cymro, a true Welshman. He attended Friars school in Bangor, where he was regarded as a useful athlete but otherwise a pain. At 16 he joined the RAF, serving as a photographer in Cyprus and Singapore and generally honing his artistic eye when not climbing, swimming or rollerskating. He bought himself out of the RAF in 1964 and hitchhiked back to Wales from Singapore, eventually arriving home hungry, scruffy and a confirmed hippy.
He then revelled in three creative years at Hammersmith College of Art in London, where he met Anne Forrest and her two small sons. In the 1970s they came to Carrog in North Wales to follow a dream of living in rural self-sufficiency. Though they eventually separated, Ed remained in the cottage where they had lived, Tŷ Gwyn, for 45 years. Somewhat to his surprise he became a much-loved member of the community, helping neighbours with lambing and haymaking and creating a wild garden for the village school.
He found his spiritual practice in yoga, kung fu and Chi kung, and also taught tai chi.
Ed’s connection to nature fed his active life and artistic passion: he ran in the hills, climbed mountains and did whitewater canoeing, all the time drawing and painting. He was also a dedicated Guardian reader, thinking nothing of walking two miles to the shop for his paper.
We became partners, in love and work, in 2003, creating five folktale books together. In 2019 his drawings were exhibited in the company of Wales’s best-known illustrators at Aberystwyth Arts Centre and then the Ceredigion Museum, also in Aberystwyth.
He is survived by me and by his sister, Hilary.
