The Consummate Friend and Volunteer

The Carnegie Treasures Cookbook was an overnight success four years in the making.

Published in 1984, the award-winning 292-page volume featured art reproductions from the collection of Carnegie Museum of Art paired with menus and recipes. Created as a fundraiser for the museum, it had three print runs and sold thousands of copies across all 50 states, Japan, and Europe. But its success was no accident. It was willed into being by Edith “Toto” Fisher. 

“She was a natural at leadership and she took Carnegie Museums to different heights through her fundraising, energy, and ideas,” says Alice Snyder, emeritus member of the Carnegie Museum of Art Advisory Board, and a longtime neighbor and friend to Toto.

The cookbook was a signature achievement for Fisher, who died in June 2023 at the age of 93. She and her husband, Jim Fisher (who died in 2014), were longtime supporters of Carnegie Museums who not only contributed financially but also gave their time and energy to advocate for the institution. 

The Fishers were instrumental in bringing The Andy Warhol Museum to Pittsburgh. Shortly after Warhol’s death in 1987, Jim Fisher met personally with Fred Hughes, the executor of Warhol’s estate and president of the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. He was intent on touting Pittsburgh’s virtues for a foundation-funded scholarship program supporting local artists. The two men had an instant connection and, as their friendship blossomed over the ensuing years, so did the ambitions for honoring Warhol’s legacy, with the Fishers advocating for Pittsburgh to host what eventually became The Andy Warhol Museum.

“The Andy Warhol Museum simply would not exist were it not for the passion and foresight of Toto and Jim,” says Patrick Moore, director of The Andy Warhol Museum and vice president of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. “Their relationship with Fred Hughes, Warhol’s former business manager, was central to bringing the project to fruition. And their continued support and advocacy after the museum opened were critical to it being the success it is today.”

A Michigan native who taught primary school in Boston and New York City, Toto arrived in Pittsburgh after she married Jim, an executive at Fisher Scientific Co. (now Thermo Fisher Scientific), in 1955. She embraced her adopted city and took volunteer leadership positions in its cultural institutions. But she was particularly devoted to Carnegie Museums. In 1972, she became a Carnegie Museums trustee and co-founded the Museum of Art’s docent program. She served as president of the Women’s Committee from 1972 to 1974, and remained involved the rest of her life.

“She came up with ideas,” Snyder recalls of Fisher’s involvement with the Women’s Committee. “She really studied everything in detail, and she took all of her experiences, whether it was travels or friendships or scholarship, and she managed to apply those ideas.”

Fisher donated many gifts of artwork to Carnegie Museum of Art during her long association with the museum. And in a bequest, she gave several significant pieces that were meaningful to her, such as Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red Canna, as well as a monetary donation. This completed the Fishers’ already substantial philanthropic legacy.

In the early 1980s, she embarked on one of her most ambitious projects—the Carnegie Treasures Cookbook. It had been previously proposed—and rejected—as a fundraising initiative for art acquisitions. No one on the Women’s Committee thought the book   would sell.  

As editor, Fisher dedicated herself entirely to the book’s development. She and Jim donated their own money to the project, and would use their connections to bring it to fruition. They convinced H.J. Heinz Co. to become a sponsor. When seeking a publisher, they brought it to one of Jim’s high school classmates, Alfred “Pat” Knopf Jr., who had left his father’s legendary New York firm to start his own publishing house. Knopf Jr. not only agreed to publish it, but also convinced famed chef James Beard to write the forward. 

The book raised an estimated $150,000 and won a Tastemaker Award from the R.T. French Co., makers of French’s mustard.

In many ways, the book was a perfect reflection of its editor—ambitious, culturally sophisticated, but also infused with Fisher’s love of entertaining and generosity of spirit. 

She would go on to serve Carnegie Museums in nearly every possible volunteer capacity and support it financially. Fisher served as vice chair of Carnegie Museums’ Second Century Fund campaign and chaired its Restoration Gala, raising thousands of dollars to restore the Noble Quartet statues outside the Oakland complex. She was also the driving force behind the creation of the Noble Quartet Society, recognizing those donors who have contributed $1 million+ in lifetime giving to Carnegie Museums. She was honorary co-chair of the Science Center’s successful SPARK! Campaign and co-chaired its Leadership Gifts Committee, and later in life was named a Carnegie Museums emeritus trustee and emeritus member of the Museum of Art Advisory Board.

Through it all, Fisher readily opened her home to the museums when asked—and many times at her own initiation. 

 Eric Crosby, director of Carnegie Museum of Art and vice president of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, recalled how Toto had welcomed him to one of her famous garden parties shortly after his arrival in Pittsburgh in 2015. As he came to know her better, he realized that the garden parties were more than opportunities to socialize.

“I realized that Toto’s garden parties were not only an expression of love but also an inheritance and legacy of what it means to build community around art, what it means to find oneself among the curious, wonderful, sometimes rowdy, always loyal lovers of art in Pittsburgh,” Crosby recalled. “Without Toto, generations of us might not have found each other.”

Others who knew Fisher echo those sentiments and say she inspired everyone around her.

“She was inspirational to me as a woman,” says Becky Torbin, a longtime friend and former Women’s Committee president. “Working with her made me understand how someone—deep within their heart and soul—could develop a love and passion for art, and then work very hard to raise money for the arts.”