Eric Fischl: 1970-2007

The Monacelli Press, 2008 4to (29.5cm), 352 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket. "Eric Fischl emerged in the 1980s as one of America's most important figurative painters. His paintings, many of which show a single intense moment, compel the viewer to participate in a world of middle-class suburban ambiguity and drama. In Fischl's engaging distinctly American canvases, narrative, morality, sexuality, and psychology are preeminent. This volume, an expanded edition of Eric Fischl 1970-2000, is the most comprehensive examination of this important contemporary painter. More than 250 works, selected in conjunction with the artist, present the full scope of Fischl's career: the formative work of the 1970s; the breakthrough paintings of the 1980s, including the controversial Sleepwalker and Bad Boy; and the mature work, often of a personal and contemplative nature, of the 1990s and 2000s. In his most recent paintings, Fischl has turned to multipiece cycles: The Bed, The Chair series, starting with The Philosopher's Chair; canvases inspired by trips to Italy and India; and the paintings—Fischl terms them "narrative fictions"—of the "Krefeld Project." These engrossing images have been accomplished with a mastery that has been compared to that of Caravaggio." (from the blurb)