Self-taught artist, born into a family of flower growers in north London at Edmonton. He showed an early talent for drawing, but was given no encouragement. Fidler was involved in the business after school and during holidays from early childhood, an experience which he said gave him his first sense of colour values. After becoming a nurseryman at Hoddesdon, he started a successful greengrocery at Waltham Cross, taking up painting, mainly flower studies, in 1947, working well into the night. Having sold his pictures and had encouragement from other painters, in 1954 he disposed of his two shops and became a full-time artist, experimenting with various styles and other media such as abstraction and sculpture. From the late 1950s he showed at the Drian Gallery and with the Free Painters and Sculptors, of which he was a fellow, being in its First Two Decades 1952–72 show in 1989.