Global InformationEthel Fisher information
Ethel Fisher | |
|---|---|
 Ethel Fisher, Miami studio, 1956 | |
| Born | Ethel Blankfield 1923 Galveston, Texas, United States |
| Died | 2017 (aged 94) Pacific Palisades, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Art Students League of New York University of Houston University of Texas Washington University |
| Known for | Painting, drawing |
| Style | Figurative, representational |
| Spouses | Gene Fisher
(m. 1943; div. 1961)Seymour Kott
(m. 1962; died 2012) |
| Children | Sandra Fisher (1947–1994); Margaret Fisher (born 1948) |
| Awards | Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation |
| Website | Ethel Fisher |
Ethel Fisher (née Blankfield; 1923–2017) was an American painter whose career spanned more than seven decades in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles.[1][2][3] Her work ranges across abstraction and representational genres including large-scale portraiture, architectural "portraits," landscape and still-life, and is unified by a sustained formal emphasis on color and space.[4][5][6][7] After studying at the Art Students League in the 1940s, Fisher found success as an abstract artist in Florida in the late 1950s, and began exhibiting her work nationally and in Havana, Cuba.[8][9] Her formative work of this period embraced the history of art, architecture and anthropology; she referred to it as "abstract impressionist" to distinguish her approach to form and color from that of Abstract Expressionism.[10]
Fisher is best known for her portraits of fellow artists from the 1960s, and for grid-like, architectural paintings of the facades of urban cast-iron buildings, from the 1970s.[11][2] Her figurative work employs color fields and architectural details as abstract shapes to create tension between her subjects and their surroundings and impart psychological depth.[4][5] Her later, carefully rendered interiors and still lifes often include reproductions of works by well-known artists.[6]
Fisher's work was written about in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, ARTnews and Artweek, and belongs to the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Crocker Art Museum, among others.[12][13] She died in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles in 2017, at age 94.[14]
- ^ Preston, Stuart. "Contemporary Work; Galleries Show Paintings by Lee-Smith, Charcoune, Ethel Fisher and Halpern", The New York Times, February 20, 1960, p. 21. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ a b Alf, Martha. "Buildings as Icons," Artweek, March 15, 1975, p. 5.
- ^ Kienholz, Lyn (ed). "Ethel Fisher," L.A. Rising: SoCAL Artists Before 1980, California International Arts Foundation, 2010, p. 184. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ a b Wilson, William. "The Portrait: New Life for an Old Form," Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1979.
- ^ a b Loach, Roberta. "Ethel Fisher in Conversation with Roberta Loach," Visual Dialog, December 1977–February 1978, p. 2, 8–11.
- ^ a b Smith, Nancy. "Rooms With a View", Palisadian-Post, August 17, 2006, p. 11. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ Barnet, Will. "Ethel Fisher," Catalogue, Miami, FL: Mirell Gallery, 1954.
- ^ Seckler, Dorothy. "Can painting be taught? Barnet answers," ARTnews, November 1950, p. 44–5.
- ^ Jaume, Adele. "Cultural Activity, Mastery and Sensitivity, the Paintings of Ethel Fisher," Diario de la Marina (Havana), December 3, 1957.
- ^ Motika, Libby. "Painter to Painter: Ethel Fisher and R.B. Kitaj", Palisades News, November 2, 2016. Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ Clothier, Peter. "Looking at Others," Artweek, May 12, 1979.
- ^ Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Two Figures(Profile)/ Orange Space, Ethel Fisher (United States, 1923-2017)", Collections. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives. "A Finding Aid to the Ethel Fisher Papers, 1930-2017, in the Archives of American Art". Retrieved May 5, 2020.
- ^ Smithsonian Archives of American Art. "Ethel Fisher papers, 1930-2017", Collections. Retrieved May 5, 2020.