Born in New York City, the son of a map engraver, he decided early in life to become an artist.

Fisk studied in 1904 at the Art Students League, and in 1909 took life classes at the National Academy of Design, and then studied under Robert Henri at his studio, where he became a close friend of Stuart Davis.

From 1912 he studied in Paris under the Fauvist painters Pierre Laprade and Othon Friesz. There he attended the salons hosted by Leo and Gertrude Stein, making friends with many Americans abroad, and others from many countries, and attended exhibitions of work by the modernists Picasso and Matisse.

Back in the USA, he mixed with those progressive and avante garde artists who frequented Greenwich Village. He married Lucy Spalding Young, and in 1933-34, on a year’s sabbatical from his University post, he studied in England, where he John Rothenstein in Sheffield, toured Cornwall, and researched into techniques in etching in London. Some results of this experience are the titles Harbour in Penzance Cornwall (mezzotint 1935) and Penzance, Cornwall (mezzotint 1935).