Jan Fisher: Mormon Artist

Jan Gordon Fisher is an award-winning sculptor who focuses his work on the history of the Polynesian people. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Fisher was born on March 5, 1938, in Westwood, California. He attended Brigham Young University on a scholarship and earned a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1965. He studied under master Antonio Prieto while he continued his education at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Fisher fell in love with the Polynesian people while serving as a missionary in Samoa for three years. He was an art professor at Brigham Young University-Hawaii for 21 years. He has created many well known monumental bronze sculptures that grace the resorts and parks across the Hawaiian Islands, among the most notable, the sculpture of acclaimed surfer and Olympic swimming gold medalist Duke Paoa Kahanamoku in Waikiki. He created the 1985 monument celebrating 300,000 immigrants from the ethnic groups who came to Koloa to work in the sugar industry.

Fisher created a bronze of a Polynesian warrior that is part of a monument honoring the Hawaiian community in the town of Iosepa, Utah. President Joseph F. Smith served as a missionary in the Hawaiian Islands and was dearly loved by the people. Iosepa is the Hawaiian word for Joseph.

He has belonged to the National Sculpture Society since 1991.