PHOENIX (January 17, 2025) – Contemporary painter, sculptor, author and ұ (ұ) alumnus Eric Fischl celebrates 20 years of the ERIC FISCHL SERIES. Hosted in partnership with Phoenix Art Museum and sponsored by Varitec Solutions, the 2025 event will take place on Wednesday, April 2 from 5:30 – 8:30 pm at Phoenix Art Museum, 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ, 85004. The series includes a student art exhibition and reception, followed by the Vanguard Awards Presentation and a conversation in Whiteman Hall between Eric Fischl and special guest Eleanor Nairne, the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art.
About Eric Fischl
Born in New York City in 1948, grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He began his art education in Phoenix where his parents had moved in 1967. He attended ұ and earned his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972. After time spent in Chicago, where he worked as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art, he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Fischl had his first solo show, curated by Bruce W. Ferguson, at Dalhousie Art Gallery in Nova Scotia in 1975 before relocating to New York City in 1978.
Fischl's suburban upbringing provided him with a backdrop of alcoholism and a country club culture obsessed with image over content. His early work thus became focused on the rift between what was experienced and what could not be said. His first New York City solo show was at Edward Thorp Gallery in 1979, during a time when suburbia was not considered a legitimate genre for art. He first received critical attention for depicting the dark, disturbing undercurrents of mainstream American life.
An internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor, Fischl’s artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.
About Eleanor Nairne
Currently the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Eleanor Nairne previously served as the Senior Curator at Barbican Art Gallery in London, where she curated many of the gallery’s best-attended and most critically acclaimed exhibitions, including Alice Neel: Hot Off The Griddle (2023), Soheila Sokhanvari: Rebel Rebel (2022), Lee Krasner: Living Colour (2019), Basquiat: Boom for Real (2017).
Before joining Barbican, Nairne was the curator of the Artangel Collection at Tate, where she organized more than 30 exhibitions and installations across the UK. In 2021, she was the guest curator for Eva Hesse / Hannah Wilke: Erotic Abstraction (2021) at Acquavella Galleries in New York and edited the accompanying publication. This exhibition was the first to pair the pioneering work of the two feminist post-minimalist sculptors, Eva Hesse and Hannah Wilke, and was selected by Frieze as one of the top 10 US exhibitions of 2021.
Nairne received an MA in History of Art from Courtauld Institute of Art in 2010 and earned a BA in Modern History from Oxford University in 2008. She is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, as well as The New York Times and others.
The Event
An exhibition of ұ “Best in Show” selections from the annual Student Art Exhibition will be on display at Phoenix Art Museum, followed by presentation of the prestigious Vanguard Awards. In Whiteman Hall, Fischl and Nairne will then engage in a conversation about Fischl’s new work including , a series of large-scale, hand-painted bronze sculptures derived from virtual reality paintings.
Wednesday, April 2, 2024 / ERIC FISCHL SERIES
Phoenix Art Museum | 1625 N. Central Avenue | Phoenix | AZ | 85004
• 5:30 p.m. | Student Art Exhibition & Reception, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt)
• 7:00 p.m. | Vanguard Student Art Awards, PhxArt Whiteman Hall
• 7:30 p.m. | Eric Fischl & Eleanor Nairne Conversation, PhxArt Whiteman Hall
Tickets for the ERIC FISCHL SERIES are required and available via
About the Vanguard Awards
A hallmark of the ERIC FISCHL SERIES, the esteemed Vanguard Awards were created by Eric Fischl in 2005 to recognize emerging student talent in the fine arts, make ұ a center for the arts in downtown Phoenix, and create life-changing opportunities for students. The Vanguard Award is a $2,500 Best in Show Award, selected by Fischl and guest from among the work submitted for the Annual Student Art Exhibit. To-date, 67 students have been presented with a total of 74 Vanguard Awards.
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