Major new catalogue dedicated to Eric Fischl, one of the leading figurative painters working in the USA today.

Contemporary artist Eric Fischl has been unwavering in his commitment to painting the human figure throughout his long career, revealing the body’s central role in determining social and individual experience. As the first major book on the artist in over a decade, this beautifully illustrated publication accompanies a new exhibition, Eric Fischl: Stories Told, in Phoenix, Arizona and includes early, well-known paintings and works on paper focused on the inhabitants of middle-class American suburbs with their social taboos, family secrets, toxic masculinity and unacknowledged privileges.

Also featured are the recent poetically and revealingly titled series of paintings Late America, Presence of an Absence, and Complications of an Already Unfulfilled Life. These works were created in the contexts of the pandemic, political activism and division. They are darkly hued and, in a fluid, active style which conveys a greater sense of urgency, reflect both the challenges of our time and the artist’s experience and age.

Featuring new and unpublished work, this book will be essential for Fischl’s many loyal fans, and all those interested in modern and contemporary figurative painting.

Heather Sealy Lineberry is curator emeritus at the Arizona State University Art Museum. Dr. Kathryn Brown is Reader in Art Histories, Markets and Digital Heritage at Loughborough University (UK). Eleanor Heartney is a New York–based art critic, curator, art historian, and writer. Eleanor Nairne is the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Head of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Arcmanoro Niles is a New York–based contemporary artist, specializing in representational figurative painting.