Artist
Biography
Louise Fishman (1939–2021) was an influential American painter known for her powerful abstract works that fused gestural brushwork with a deep engagement with history, identity, and materiality. Born in Philadelphia to an artistic family, Fishman studied art at the Philadelphia College of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Tyler School of Art, where she received her BFA in 1963. Two years later she earned an MFA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fishman immediately moved to New York, where she lived and worked for the rest of her life, maintaining studios in downtown Manhattan and rural upstate New York.
In New York in the 1960s, Fishman engaged with the art of her time. Her early paintings were expressive and experimental, reflecting both personal introspection and the social movements of the era. While assimilating numerous stylistic influences, Fishman consistently deployed abstraction to explore her experiences as a Jewish lesbian woman. As she later reflected in a 2016 interview, “I felt that Abstract Expressionist work was an appropriate language for me as a queer. It was a hidden language, on the radical fringe, a language appropriate to being separate.”
By the early 1970s, Fishman was deeply engaged with second-wave feminism and political activism, which led her to question conventional fine art practices. She temporarily abandoned painting and focused on sculptural constructions that searched for meaning in materials and methods associated with women’s lives. In 1973 she produced her seminal “Angry Women” paintings, which featured the names of female friends and historical figures writ large and became enduring touchstones of the feminist art movement.
Returning to gestural painting in the late 1970s, Fishman helped renew the language of abstraction for a new era of identity politics. Her support for the feminist cause and gay and lesbian rights continued to find expression in her abstractions. So too did other life experiences, including a 1988 trip to Central Europe with a friend who survived the Holocaust, which led to a painterly meditation on the bitter history of mid-century Judaism. Later bodies of work were informed by the sensory delights of her many trips to Venice.
In the 21st century, and despite her advancing age, Fishman’s paintings became known for their increasing scale and physicality. Drawing inspiration from Abstract Expressionism while forging her own path, she created works that foregrounded process. Using brushes, scrapers, and trowels to add and subtract layers of paint, she wove emphatic strokes and gestures into grid-based compositions that manage to balance structure and spontaneity.
Throughout her career, Fishman received critical acclaim and exhibited widely in the United States and internationally. Her work is held in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In addition to her artistic achievements, she was a respected educator and mentor to younger generations of artists. Louise Fishman’s legacy endures through her bold imagining of abstraction as a deeply personal and politically resonant form of expression.
Louise Fishman working in her studio
Solo Exhibitions
2025
Louise Fishman: Always Stand Ajar, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
2024
Louise Fishman: Angry Women, Goya Contemporary at The Armory Show, New York, NY
2023
Dear Louise: A Tribute to Louise Fishman (1939–2021), Cheim & Read, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: Soliloquy, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2022
Louise Fishman: 1960s, Darkness and Light, Karma, New York, NY
The Soul Selects: Louise Fishman and Her Heroes, Martin, Mitchell and Hesse, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
2021
Louise Fishman: We’ll Meet Again, Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA
A Question of Emphasis: Louise Fishman Drawing, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL
2020
Louise Fishman: An Hour is a Sea, Vielmetter at Frieze, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: Ballin’ the Jack, Karma, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: 9 Works on Paper, Karma, New York, NY
2019
Louise Fishman: Cut Pieced Painted Stapled, Sculptural Paintings from the ’70s, Frameless Gallery at Frieze, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: My City, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Louise Fishman: The Tumult in the Heart, Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA
2017
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
2016
Louise Fishman: A Retrospective, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY; traveled to Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Paper Louise Tiny Fishman Rock, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
2015
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
2014
Louise Fishman: Venice Watercolours, 2011–2013, Frameless Gallery and Gallery Nosco, London, UK
2013
Louise Fishman: It’s Here, Elsewhere, Goya Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
2012
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY
Louise Fishman: Five Decades, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2010
Louise Fishman, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA
2009
Louise Fishman: Among the Old Masters, John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
2008
Louise Fishman: Between Geometry and Gesture, Archive Kienzle & Gmeiner Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2007
Louise Fishman, The Tenacity of Painting: Paintings from 1970 to 2005, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
2006
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
2005
Louise Fishman, Foster Gwin Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004
Louise Fishman: Recent Work, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
New York Abstract Painters: George McNeil / Louise Fishman, Foster Gwin, San Francisco, CA
2003
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
2002
Louise Fishman: Selected Paintings, Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2001
Louise Fishman, Paule Anglim Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000
Louise Fishman, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
1999
Louise Fishman, Paule Anglim Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1998
Louise Fishman: Paintings & Drawings, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Louise Fishman: Recent Paintings and Drawings, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
1996
Louise Fishman: Recent Paintings, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
1995
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
1994
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings, 1992–1994, Bianca Lanza Gallery, Miami, FL
1993
Louise Fishman, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, NY
1992
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings 1979–1992, Temple Gallery, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA
Louise Fishman: Drawings and Experimental Work 1971–1992, Tyler Galleries, Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA
Louise Fishman: Paintings 1986–1992, Morris Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings 1978–1992, Simon Watson, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings, Olin Art Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH
1991
Louise Fishman: New Paintings, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
1989
Louise Fishman: New Paintings 1987–1989, Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York, NY
Remembrance and Renewal, Simon Watson Gallery, New York, NY
1987
Louise Fishman and Andrew Spence: Two from the Corcoran, Winston Gallery, Washington, DC
1986
Louise Fishman: New Paintings, Baskerville & Watson Gallery, New York, NY
1985
Fishman/Sanderson, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
1984
Louise Fishman, Baskerville & Watson Gallery, New York, NY
1982
Louise Fishman: Recent Work, Oscarsson Hood Gallery, New York, NY
Louise Fishman, John Davis Gallery, Akron, OH
1980
Louise Fishman: Small Paintings, The MacDowell Colony, Oscarsson Hood Gallery, New York, NY
1979
Louise Fishman, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY
Louise Fishman: Five Years, 55 Mercer, New York, NY
1978
Louise Fishman, Diplomats Lobby, United States Department of State, Washington, DC
1977
Louise Fishman, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY
1976
Louise Fishman, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI
Louise Fishman, John Doyle Gallery, Chicago, IL
1974
Louise Fishman, Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY
1964
Louise Fishman, Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Group Exhibitions
2026
Influencers, Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY
Painting Universes, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Beauty: Tom Wolf and Friends, Ki Smith Gallery, New York, NY
Goya Contemporary at IFPDA Print Fair, New York, NY
Oehme Graphics at Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair, Brooklyn, NY
2025
a field of bloom and hum, curated by Ian Berry, Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
Small is Beautiful, Van Doren Waxter, New York, NY
The Art of Printmaking: Process and Passion, curated by Sue Oehme, Steamboat Art Museum, Steamboat Springs, CO
2024
On Paper, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Van Doren Waxter Kabinett at Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL
Van Doren Waxter at The Art Show, New York, NY
Locks Gallery at The Armory Show, New York, NY
2023
Goya Contemporary at IFPDA Print Fair, New York, NY
2022
Painting in New York: 1971–83, organized by Ivy Shapiro, Karma, New York, NY
Ninth Street and Beyond: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction Part 1: The Gestural, Hunter Dunbar, New York, NY
The Fiction of Property I, curated by Bertold Mathes, Kienzle Art Foundation, Berlin, Germany
Summer Hours, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
[Earlier group exhibitions to be added — full list per the Foundation’s Group Exhibitions document.]
Collections
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Jewish Museum, New York, NY
Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
National Academy of Design, New York, NY
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, Purchase, NY
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
University Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Bibliography
Books
Broude, Norma, and Mary D. Garrard, eds. The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994.
Cottingham, Laura. Seeing Through the Seventies: Essays on Feminism and Art. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Franklin, Margery B., and Bernard Kaplan, eds. Development and the Arts: Critical Perspectives. Florence, KY: Psychology Press, 2013.
Godfrey, Mark, and Katy Siegel. Making Their Mark: Art by Women in the Shah Garg Collection. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2023.
Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. New York: Rizzoli, 2000.
Lord, Catherine, and Richard Meyer. Art and Queer Culture. London: Phaidon Press, 2013.
Reed, Christopher. Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Schor, Mira. A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
Sirlin, Deanna. She’s Got What It Takes: American Women Artists in Dialogue. Milan: Charta, 2013.
Taylor, Michael R., and Gerald Auten, eds. In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth. Hanover, NH: Hood Museum of Art, 2014.
Vida, Ginny, ed. Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
[Exhibition catalogues and articles to be added — full list per the Foundation’s Bibliography document.]