This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Known for large still lifes of common objects with bright colors--lime
green, pink, yellow--, Janet Fish works from a loft in the SoHo section
of New York City and takes pride in the fact that she paints "forbidden
subjects," realistic still lifes. Her work, expressive of her
highly independent spirit, is a reaction against the pure abstraction
that has been prevalent for so many years in the American art world,
especially in New York.
She was born in Boston into a family of
artists. Her grandfather was impressionist Clark Voorhees; her
mother was a sculptor, which Janet originally wanted to be; and her
sister, Alida, is a photographer. Janet, who grew to be nearly
six-feet tall, spent much time in her childhood at the Old Lyme Colony
in Connecticut with her artist grandfather and there was much
influenced by American Impressionism.
At Smith College, she
studied sculpture and printmaking with Leonard Baskin and also studied
sculpture at Yale University. She did her first still lifes in
the late 1960s and early hit upon her signature style, which was
reflective surfaces often depicted in plastic wrap, glassware, and
mirrored surfaces. She also showed brand names such as Windex,
which aligned her with pop artists.
In the 1980s, she began
spending much time in rural Vermont with her long-time companion,
painter Charles Parness, and on these trips transports from SoHo the
many still life props she needs for her paintings.
However, her
interest in realism and the way light plays on surfaces set her apart
from the prevalent modernists, and that decision has literally paid off
because her work has been acquired by numerous collectors and major
museums including the Chicago Art Institute, the Boston Museum, and the
Whitney Museum in New York.
It is said that in her work she
retained the energy she learned from the Abstract Expressionists.
She has loose and linear brushstrokes with elements of abstraction, but
most of her subjects are recognizable such as bags of junk food, crying
children, cans of beer, etc.
Sources include:
ARTnews
Art in America
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Biography from Abby M Taylor Fine Art:
| Janet Fish was born in 1938 in Boston and raised in Bermuda. She was practically destined to become an artist, being the granddaughter of Clark Voorhees, a well-known American Impressionist painter, and the daughter of a sculptor and potter.
Fish studied sculpture and printmaking at Smith College where she received a bachelor’s degree. Afterwards, she attended Yale University’s School of Art and Architecture and was one of the first women to receive a master’s degree there.
During the late 50’s and early 60’s, art schools were dominated by the theories of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism and Smith and Yale were no exceptions. Fish was greatly influenced by this training, but turned to figurative painting, as did many artists of this generation.
As a student at Yale, Fish’s realistic approach to art was not encouraged. Realism was considered inferior to abstract or conceptual art at this time. However, in her heart, Fish knew she was a realist.
After graduation, Fish continued painting figurative compositions, focusing on still lifes. She moved to New York and soon found gallery representation. Her career as an artist took off rather suddenly. Since this time her work has been collected and shown by many major institutions throughout the world.
Exhibitions:
DC Moore Gallery, NY, 2002, 2000,1998,
The Columbus Museum, GA, 2000
Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, 1998
Grace Borgenicht Gallery, NY 1995
The Museum of Arts & Sciences, GA, 1993
Aspen Art Museum, CO, 1992-93
Orlando Museum of Art, FL
Smith College, MA, 1986
Hollins College, VA 1985
Delaware Art Museum, DE, 1982
Hogarth Galleries, Sydney, Australia, 1975
Galerie Alexandra Monett, Brussels, Belgium, 1974
Galerie De Gestlo, Hamburg, Germany, 1970
National Academy of Design, NY 2001, 1999, 1996, 1993, 1991, 1980, 1977, 1971
Art Institute of Chicago, IL, 1999
Bruce Museum, CT 1998
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1994, 1991
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MA, 1994, 1992
Museum of Modern Art, NY 1987
Butler Institute of American Art, OH, 1986
The Brooklyn Museum, NY 1986
Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY 1982
Collections:
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Butler Institute of American Art, OH
Knoxville Museum of Art, TN
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Newark Museum, NJ
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, PA
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
Yale University, CT |
Biography from The Columbus Museum-Georgia:
| Janet Fish was born in 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts. She
received a BA from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in
1960. The following year she studied painting at the Skowhegan
Art School in Maine where she met visiting painter/critic Alex
Katz. Katz became a life-long mentor, encouraging her to expand
her horizons beyond the heavy influence of Abstract Expressionism she
encountered in graduate school. (1) However, the fluid
brushstroke, brilliant color and “organic” approach to filling the
canvas that she explored while immersed in Abstract Expressionism
continued to influence Fish’s subsequent work, both landscape and still
life paintings.
She received a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Yale in
1963. Among her classmates was a new generation of artists whose
work arose also from Abstract Expressionism: Chuck Close, Nancy Graves,
Richard Serra, Brice Marden, and Rackstraw Downs.
Fish has become well known for executing large, colorful still life
paintings of glasses and other reflective objects placed on
cloth-covered table tops. While her work is obviously influenced
by the 17th century Dutch still-life tradition celebrating the bounty
of the harvest and the beauty of nature, it also reveals French
Impressionist influence in the intertwining of light-filled strokes of
vibrant color. This technique provides for smooth yet lively
gestures that move across the surface of the canvas, drawing the
viewer’s eyes from object to object.
Fish’s interest in exploring an active canvas can be traced in part to
her youth, growing up in Bermuda, which she describes as “a small,
crowded island… [where] there’s a profusion, a density, of vegetation
which might have led me toward the very active surfaces I paint.” (2)
Janet Fish is considered a “new realist” painter in that she is less
concerned with copying the superficial likeness of things in an
academic way than she is with expressing the light, colors and textures
perceived in the natural world. (3) Her approach to painting
reflects her experience with the active canvas of Abstract
Expressionism as well as her deliberate choice to paint real objects.
In 1997, Fish’s Raspberries and Goldfish was included in “Still
Life: The Object in American Art 1915-1995”, an exhibition at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Curator Lowery Sims noted
the skepticism that surrounded the new American Realism, even 40 years
after its introduction. “We may be a little suspicious these days of
the pictorialism in realist painting. Right now, there’s a
greater interest in the objective gaze that captures the more gritty
aspects of life. There’s a tendency to favor theory over the
formal aspects of painting. When I was putting together this
show, I noticed how Janet hadn’t just randomly arranged these
flowers…the painting was deliberate in its compositional and lighting
choices. There was a lot more going on than met the eye. It was
more than skillfully capturing visual effects.” (4)
Paintings by Janet Fish have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and
overseas. They form part of the permanent collections at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; The
Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Art Institute of Chicago; Columbus
Museum; and many other public and private collections.
Sources:
1. Judith Stein. Janet Fish: Recent Paintings and Watercolors (exhibition catalogue). New York, NY: D.C. Moore Gallery, 1998, 6.
2. Carter Ratcliff. Janet Fish (exhibition catalogue), New York, NY, Robert Miller Gallery, 1985.
3. Les Reker. Janet Fish (introduction to exhibition catalogue), New York, NY: D. C. Moore Gallery, 2000.
4. Cynthia Nadelman. “Forbidden Fruit,” ARTnews, October 1999, 175.
staff, Columbus Museum |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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Janet Fish is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Women Artists
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