B. 1948 -

Eric Fischl was born in 1948 in New York City and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He began his art education when his parents moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967, and attended Phoenix College. He earned his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972, and then worked as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. In 1974, he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Fischl had his first solo show in Nova Scotia in 1975 before relocating to New York City in 1978.

Fischl’s work is influenced by his suburban upbringing, where he observed society’s obsession with image. Suburbia was not an accepted subject for art when Fischl had his first New York City solo show in 1979, and he received criticism for depicting the dark, disturbing undercurrents of mainstream American life.

Fischl’s artwork has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Fischl has had numerous solo and major group exhibitions. His work is represented in many museums and prestigious private and corporate collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modem Art in New York City, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, St. Louis Art Museum, Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark, and many others. Fischl has collaborated with other artists and authors, including E.L. Doctorow, Allen Ginsberg, Jamaica Kincaid, Jerry Saltz and Frederic Tuten.

Eric Fischl is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.