Louise Fishman Retrospective and Companion Exhibition Reveal Abstract Painter's Five-Decade Evolution

Two concurrent exhibitions in 2016 offered comprehensive surveys of Louise Fishman's work. 'Louise Fishman: A Retrospective' at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY, featured over 50 paintings and drawings from 1968 to 2016, curated by Helaine Posner. The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia presented 'Paper Louise Tiny Fishman Rock,' curated by Ingrid Shaffner, focusing on small sculptures, leporellos, and five large paintings. Fishman's early work, like 1968's In and Out, shows hard-edged abstraction influenced by Al Held. During the 1970s feminist movement, she created grid-oriented sculptures using rubber, graphite, and string, influenced by Eva Hesse's memorial exhibition. Her 1973 Angry Paintings series featured text-based protest works naming figures like Ti-Grace Atkinson and Djuna Barnes. The Remembrance and Renewal series (1988-1990) incorporated silt from Auschwitz and addressed Holocaust trauma with Hebrew titles. Monochromatic paintings from the early 1990s, such as Iron Sharpens Iron (1993), used drywall knives and trowels on large canvases. Later works like For There She Was (1998) referenced Virginia Woolf and Chinese scholar's rocks, while 2011-2015 paintings drew inspiration from J.M.W. Turner and Robert Schumann's music. Fishman's athletic background and Buddhist practice informed her gestural approach. The exhibitions positioned her within Abstract Expressionist traditions while highlighting her feminist and spiritual concerns.