Albertina : 14 February to 18 May 2014
The American painter, graphic artist and sculptor Eric Fischl is one of
the most important representatives of contemporary figuration. His work is characterised
by a style linked with American realism. The compositions, which capture scenes like
snapshots, convey the impression of a film clip. The just completed or immediately
imminent action is thus often only implied.
Eric Fischl's motifs are often derived from domestic contexts. They describe the everyday
and the ordinary, show people in constellations as couples or in interaction, usually scantily
clad to nude in an atmosphere dominated by sexuality. The viewer is incorporated into this
pictorial world created by Fischl in the role of the voyeur.
The exhibit in the Albertina concentrates on Eric Fischl's graphic works and encompasses a
cross-section of his work. In addition to print graphics, works on glassine and chrome coat
paper, including Eric Fischl's well-known bathing and beach scenes, several bronze
sculptures of the artist are on display and complement the posing figures of the
watercolours.
Eric Fischl was born in 1948 in New York and grew up on Long Island. He commenced with
his artistic training at the Junior College in Phoenix, Arizona, where he had moved with his
family in 1967. He continued his studies at Arizona State University and finally moved to the
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he graduated in 1972. Fischl then moved to
Chicago, where he worked as an attendant at the Museum of Contemporary Art and came
into contact with the artistic avant garde. In 1974 Eric Fischl accepted a position as an art
instructor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. In 1978 he moved to New
York, where he lives and works today, in addition to at his residence at Sag Harbor.
Eric Fischl
The Critics, 1979
Oil on glassine paper
© Courtesy of the artist and Jablonka
Galerie, Cologne
Eric Fischl
Study for Floating Islands, 1985
Oil on Chromecoat paper
© Courtesy of the artist and Jablonka Galerie, Cologne
Eric Fischl
Scenes and Sequences: Man, 1986
Monotype on paper
© Courtesy of the artist and Jablonka Galerie, Cologne
Scences and Sequences: Dream, 1986
Eric Fischl
Monotype on paper
© Courtesy of the artist and Jablonka Galerie, Cologne
Review of earlier show, with lots of bathing and beach scene images
