Traumerei
2016
Oil on linen

9/11 Redux
2013
Oil on linen

Louise Fishman (1939–2021) was born in Philadelphia, into an artistic family and died in New York. Her mother, Gertrude Fisher-Fishman, and her paternal aunt, Razel Kapustin, were both working artists. Fisher-Fishman took her daughter to the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as the occasional life-drawing session. Kapustin, a well-known painter in Philadelphia, studied under Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros (Jackson Pollock was one of her classmates).

Fishman voraciously read her mother’s art books and magazines, finding Abstract Expressionist painting particularly compelling because of the evident athleticism. Fishman was a sportswoman herself, playing basketball in high school, and baseball on the boys’ team.

She studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, going on to earn her BFA in painting and printmaking, and a BS in Arts Education from Tyler School of Art in 1963. After completing her MFA at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana in 1965, she moved to New York City, where she continues to live and work.

At first, she struggled to find her path, but soon her involvement with feminist and gay and lesbian causes helped her find community, and her artistic voice. Fishman’s quest to divest herself of the patriarchal legacy of the art historical canon led to a complete overhaul of her materials and process. She experimented with craft (sewing and dying fabric) as well as incorporating text, and ultimately found her way back to abstract painting, with a clear vision, on her own terms.