A colorful and dramatic depiction of a heavy cargo freighter working deep and encumbered with cargo in a rolling Atlantic Ocean, Fischer painted this work on direct commission for his good friend, Charles Thomas Croucher. As editor of “Canadian Home Journal”, Croucher used the image to illustrate a story in the publication in 1935 and kept the original painting. Croucher and Fischer first met in New York in the 1920s.

Fischer, already a popular illustrator, was a favored artist by many of the men who worked on the seas, as his artistic methods and brushwork often emphasized the challenges faced by the men working on the oceans. He has caught it well enough here, with the deck awash and the waterline barely visible on the tramp steamer, a soft smoke pulling down off the stack and the ventilators pushing the heated environment below out and clear.

Fischer produced true coloration in the sky and rolling sea, much to the clarity of the story it would accompany. This work is an excellent example of Fischer’s talent for portraying the life at sea to the masses of armchair sailors who followed the tales of such adventures.