Barbara Edwards Contemporary is pleased to present our first solo exhibition of renowned American artist Eric Fischl. Working through the primacy of the figure, Eric Fischl paints how we imagine and experience the body in modern life. Associated with the Neo-expressionist and the New Image movements of the 1980s, Fischl is a master of creating psychologically charged figures whose gestures suggest narrative dichotomies, both sacred and profane. In this exhibition of large-scale watercolours, Fischl’s brush strokes and attention to qualities of light create a psychological presence in the figure which can be read through the abstracted body.

Born in New York City in 1948 and raised in the suburbs of Long Island, Fischl attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California where he earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1972. From 1974 to 1978 he taught painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, alongside leading conceptual artists of his generation. In 1978 he moved to New York City where he maintains his studio practice while residing in Sag Harbour, Long Island.

Eric Fischl has been the subject of solo exhibitions at major institutions including: the Art Gallery of Ontario; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Kunsthalle Basel; Akademie der Bildenden Künstein, Vienna; Museum Haus Esters, Krefeld; and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. He represented the United States at the 41st Venice Biennial in 1984, and exhibited at Documenta 8 in 1987 and the Whitney Biennials in 1983, 1985, and 1991. Fischl’s work is represented in the collections of important institutions such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


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