Pearle Fisher, a retired department store fashion illustrator who sketched numerous print advertisements, died of Alzheimer's disease Friday at Woodholme Gardens Assisted Living. She was 91 and lived in Owings Mills.
Born Pearle Rosenthal in Brooklyn, N.Y., she was the daughter of a New York furrier.
"Pearle had a charming personality and was well-liked. She always loved to sing, especially Italian love songs and Yiddish lullabies," said her son, Allan Eytan of Pikesville. "As a young girl, she and her three sisters sang as a quartet. They were often compared with the Andrews Sisters."
She was an honors fashion illustration graduate of Girls' Commercial High School in Brooklyn. Family members said she had wanted to attend the Pratt Institute, but because of the hard financial times during the Depression, she began work at 18 as a freelance illustrator in the New York fashion industry.
She remained close to her family — her mother was an opera aficionado and ardent Zionist — and turned down an offer to head a women's shoe manufacturer's art department in Sydney, Australia.
When her family relocated to Washington, D.C., she also moved there. In 1949 she entered a fashion design contest sponsored by The Washington Post. She won a first prize that helped her start a career. She became a buyer at two fashion stores, Kaplowitz and L. Frank & Co. She also did illustrations for the D.C. Hecht Co.
She moved to Baltimore in the mid-1950s and headed fashion illustration departments of the old Brager-Gutman, Hochschild-Kohn and Hecht Co.
"Thousands of full-page ads with her layouts and beautiful fashion illustrations appeared for 25 years in The Baltimore Sun and the old News American," said her son. "Her illustrations were not credited, and at one time she had piles of tearsheets of all the clothing she had sketched. She worked in downtown Baltimore and in an office, and dressed in a smock. She could knock out a sketch in no time. She made it look effortless."
An August 1965 photo of Mrs. Fisher taken as she drew a Hochschild-Kohn fashion ad was featured in the Jewish Museum of Maryland's 2001 show "Enterprising Emporiums: The Jewish Department Stores of Downtown Baltimore." She also taped an oral history about her department store work.
"She was a colorful dresser too. She was New York in style," her son said.
When she retired nearly 30 years ago, she began painting abstracts, landscapes, portraits and impressionist works. She placed her paintings in juried shows in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. One of her many paintings, "Energy," an abstract oil depicting the power of industry, was judged "Best in Show" at a 1986 Maryland Art League Exhibit in Ellicott City.
Mrs. Fisher also participated in several two-artist exhibits at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation's Hoffberger Gallery and at Temple Oheb Shalom's gallery. She last exhibited in 1997 at the Slayton House in Columbia. She also donated a work to the Children's House at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Mrs. Fisher also displayed her works at the Baltimore Life Gallery, Columbia Art Center and the Turner Gallery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
She and her husband of 23 years, Bernard Fisher, who died in 1999, took cruises throughout the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal. They also traveled to Israel.
They were members of Beth El Congregation in Pikesville, where she designed the artwork for the cover of a popular congregational cookbook. She completed her adult Jewish education with a bat mitzvah at Temple Oheb Shalom with Rabbi Donald Berlin and Cantor Melvin Luterman.
Services will be held at 9 a.m. Monday at Sol Levinson and Bros., 8900 Reisterstown Road.
In addition to her son, survivors include two grandchildren. Her marriage to Edward A. Stark ended in divorce.