Eric Fischl, who was born in New York in 1948, became known in the eighties for his paintings of mercilessly revealing moments in the lives of the American middle classes. Among the painters of his generation, which includes David Salle and Julian Schnabel, Fischl is widely recognized as engaging most intensely with this typical American theme. As Fischl himself says, painting is a process that turns thoughts into feelings and that uses form and color to create meaning. His urge to go beyond painterly parameters and to allow for subjectivity and content onto his canvases links him to younger painters like Luc Tuymans and Elizabeth Peyton. In the nineties, Fischl found new impulses and topics: foreign cultures, religious rituals, age, and death now take center stage. The motifs in his most recent series are based on digitally manipulated photographs of a sparsely furnished room. This catalog presents an overview of Eric Fischl's work with around forty paintings and the same number of drawings, all made between 1979 and 2001. (German edition available ISBN 3-7757-1378-6) Exhibition Schedule: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg September 13, 2003 - January 4, 2004