University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository Exhibition Brochures University Museums 1987 Janet Fish: Paintings and Drawings Since 1975 University of Richmond Museums Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.richmond.edu/exhibition-brochures Part of the Fine Arts Commons, and the Painting Commons Recommended Citation University of Richmond Museums. Janet Fish: Paintings and Drawings Since 1975, September 10 to October 03, 1987, Marsh Art Gallery, University of Richmond Museums. Richmond, Virginia: University of Richmond Museums, 1987. Exhibition Brochure. This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the University Museums at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Exhibition Brochures by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. JANET FISH LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION Janet Fish Robert Miller Gallery, New York Don and Jennifer Carter Dolores and Stanley Feldman PaineWebber Group, lnc. Lois Farfel Stark The Marsh Gallery exhibition is made possible by the generosity of Joel Harnett, RC '45, and the Cultural Affairs Committee, University of Richmond. © 1987 University of Richmond COVER: Geography. 1984 JANET FISH Paintings and Drawings Since 1975 September 10-0ctober 3, 1987 Exhibition organized by Susanne Arnold with an essay by Robert C. Morgan Marsh Gallery Modlin Fine Arts Center University of Richmond Rrd Cups a11d Tulips, 198 1 2 concerns and to the arts. The 1979 recipient of the Her paintings of the early '70s, in which she ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Gotham Human Relations Award for civic leader­ combined realistic subjects with an abstract ship, Harnett is a poet and, with his wife Lila, a handling of paint, established her career. Yet, as The greatest pleasure of working on this exhibition collector of fine art. this exhibition reveals, over the last twelve years has come from getting to know artist Janet Fish. Harnett's belief that art should be a part of the she has taken progressively more risks with color She has responded with enthusiasm and full essential spirit of the University led him four years and composition as well as with the integration of cooperation and made our trip to New York for her ago to endow the opening exhibition of each Marsh the figure. For example, Fourth ofJuly (1985), interview a success. We appreciate the studio time Gallery season. He envisioned bringing to this unleashes all the possibilities of color and intricacy she has graciously given up to help with exhibition campus major American artists whose work and that are restrained and unexplored in her studies of arrangements. whose presence would stimulate, provoke, enrich glasses in the '70s. Additionally, the deep illusionis­ We gratefully acknowledge the time, effort and and inform students, faculty and the community at tic space and narrative allusion in Waiting for Will resources of the Robert Miller Gallery, and we large. Harnett's vision has been in trumental in (1986) severs Fish's tie with Modernism. appreciate the many hours Nathan Kernan spent enhancing the educational impact of the gallery Although Fish's paintings may be loosely placed on this show's behalf. and of the Art Department both on campus and off. within the category of Realism-the cool, objective The paintings in this exhibition are on loan from Thus, we extend our deepest and most sincere representation of the material world-they resist both public and private collections. We are in­ thanks to Joel Harnett, without whose continued such tidy indexing. The tour de force of Fish's work debted to the lenders; without their support this vision and generosity this annual event cou ld not is her personal response to her subjects. Her exhibition would not be a major statement. have taken place. sensory perceptions thus yield a beauty and joie de We are grateful to Robert Morgan and Lisa vivre that ultimately dominate the paintings. Pesko for their valuable contributions. Special thanks go to Richard Papale of Burton, Susanne Arnold Skira & Co. Ltd., for the generous loan of cata­ Director logue material, and to Jae Drewett, whose printing Marsh Gallery expertise and friendship have been invaluable. INTRODUCTION For the sponsorship of Janet Fish's visit and The Marsh Gallery takes pride in opening its Gerrit Henry's lecture we are indebted to the 1987-88 season with the first Virginia exhibition of University's Cultural Affairs Committee and the paintings and drawings by Janet Fish, acknow­ J. Thomas Lecture Fund. ledged master of the contemporary still life Special thanks also go to Dr. Charles Johnson according to art critic Gerrit Henry. and Dr. Sheldon Wettack for their continued While this exhibition is intended to emphasize interest and support of this project, and to Dorothy her current work it is also slightly retrospective, Wagener, for her assistance in the catalogue including work dating from 1975 to 1987, so that production. To Lorraine Brevig, Kevin Ball and the viewer will understand the progression as well Eileen Walker, a personal thanks for their invalu­ as the increasing depth of the artist's oeuvre. able assistance. In the midst of a "postmodern" era, hype and novelty sell art. Even so, Janet Fish's work stands As we acknowledge the unique vision of artist apart from these sensibilities by its quiet integrity Janet Fish it is important that we also acknowledge and technical brilliance. Undaunted by the dogma the person whose vision brought her here: Joel W. of pure abstraction which reigned in her formative Harnett. Harnett graduated Phi Beta Kappa from years, Janet Fish connected with images in the real the University of Richmond in 1945. Multi­ world. Rooted in the Modernist formal tradition dimensional, he is not only a successful business­ and the Dutch still life genre tradition, her work man-President and Chairman of the Board of adheres to the world of concrete contemporary Media Horizons Inc., the world's largest publisher experience. Fish's simple, familiar subjects are in the field of visual communications-he is also rendered with formal complexity, richness of detail deeply committed to civic and humanitarian and the vibrant, tropical palette of her childhood. L _ ______________________________ _ paints away from the school and went and sat in Q Who gave you your first show? this graveyard and started painting very brushy INTERVIEW A The first was in a cooperative gallery that soon landscapes. I felt much more connected to that. folded because we all fought. Then I joined WITH JANET FISH And I started to look at the California Imagists, another co-op called "55 Mercer Street," and I such as David Park. This was a kind of rea]jst BY LISA PESKO, WC '87 had a show there. Later, Jill Kornblee came painting that came out of abstraction. Then I down and saw some of my paintings during my Q just stopped listening to everybody and every­ What made you want to become an artist? Did show at Mercer Street and l began to show at body stopped talking to me. During my final you gel support from anyone or did you just do it? Kornblee Gallery. That was my first commercial year in art school I was getting very little gallery. A An artist wasn't a surprising or unusual thing to feedback. The critics were coming in and talking want to be, because there were many artists in to. me ~bo~t anything rather than trying to deal Q Was it run !Jy a woman? my family. My grandfather, Clark Vorhees, was with this girt who's painting flowers. Because an Impressionist landscape painter, my uncle when I came back and couldn't paint landscapes A Yes, and she carried more women in that gallery was a sculptor and my mother is a sculptor. As l ?et up .still lifes to create a landscape space. So than any other gallery in New York. It was a child, I .would always say that I was going to I Just pamted, and tried to find out what I unusual. There are very few galleries that have be an artist, whatever that meant. Then I thought painting was. more than two women in them, even now. wanted to go to art school, but my family Once I left school, I moved to New York. I wanted me to go to college. So I chose Smith Q Do you think your recognition during the '70s didn't know anyone; I just stuck to my work. I has helped other women artists? which had the most varied art department of' ~egan to paint potatoes and lemons ~d things any of the schools to which I applied. I started like that as an exercise to learn volumes. That A The more women who are recognized the more out wanting to be a sculptor until I got to Yale got m~ LJ:terested in another way of organizing possible it is for other women to be seen. I had and didn't like the sculpture department. At the pamtmg. And one thing led to another. a fortunate career that way. Also, my work has Yale, under Joseph Albers, they were doing all not been tied so much to what was in fasruon. this pure Bauhaus stuff, and that was not what I Q Can you explain that further? Still life as "genre" painting was always looked wanted to do. So I studjed painting. A Well, what I hadn't been taught at Yale was how down on. A number of women paint stilt life and are very good at it. I believe that because Q What directed you toward realism? Wasn't to ~aint rea]jstically, so when I started painting Abstract Expressionism the thing to be doing? an unage I came at it fresh, because no one had women have been ignored it has, in some ways, told me how to look at it.