Eric Fischl: An Interview

Eric Fischl's early works were large-scale abstract paintings. While teaching in Nova Scotia, Fischl began to shift from abstraction to smaller, image-oriented paintings, beginning with narrative works that investigated a fisherman's family. By the time Fischl left Halifax the narrative element was gone, but the middle-class melodrama centered on the family matrix remained. In the '80s Fischl's large figurative paintings, aggressive in their confrontation with the viewer, began to receive attention. His paintings are charged with repressed adolescent sexuality that implicates the viewer, as well as the artist, as voyeur. Along with painting, he produces photographs and monotypes.

Interview by Robert Storr.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1984 and re-edited in 2004.