John Fery
John Fery was an American landscape artist specializing in large scenes of the Rocky Mountains. Born in Strasswalchen, Austria in 1859, Fery was believed to be largely self taught, as there is very little evidence of a formal education. He immigrated to the United States in 1886. He enjoyed a few hunting trips into the western United States before settling in Jackson Lake, Wyoming to paint dozens of scenes of the local lake. In 1903, he moved to Milwaukee and opened a studio. A few years later, he was hired by the Great Northern Railroad to create large paintings of the scenes in route to Glacier National Park in Montana. This helped to promote the railway and the West as the Railroad used his paintings as artistic advertisements of the West.
In 1919, John Fery moved once again to Salt Lake City, Utah and became infatuated with Zion Canyon. A decade later, he settled further west in Orcas Island, Washington where his cabin burnt down, destroying all of his possessions along with numerous sketches and paintings. After the death of his wife in 1930, Fery moved to Everett, Washington and passed away four years later. In the collection of his hundreds of paintings, his love for wildlife and nature was clear in his large landscapes which included wild animals, with rarely a sign of human.