75. Janet Fish, painter

A friend of mine on FB commented this morning, "Sometimes I find out about artists because they die. This is Janet Fish"—and a link to an LA Times obituary. Because I don't get the LAT, I went to the NY Times, and found their obit. And fell in love with this artist who painted still-lifes, and who became known for the exquisite way she captured light on glass. 

Fish was born in Boston in 1938, but lived from age ten in Bermuda, where she was surrounded by art and artists (her grandfather, who had a studio on the island, was Impressionist painter Clark Voorhees, her father was an art history professor, her mother was a potter and sculptor). After studying painting at Yale, Fish came to New York City in the 1960s when Abstract Expressionism was still going strong, but she wasn't interested in pursuing that direction—or the ensuing styles, Minimalism and Pop Art. Instead she headed into realism, painting the light as it moved over objects she arranged on a table near her window. As art historian Linda Nochlin put it in her 1988 book Women, Art, and Power, “She confers an unprecedented dignity upon the grouped jelly jars or wine bottles that she renders with such deference. The glassy fruit- or liquid-filled volumes confront us with the hypnotic solemnity of the processional mosaics at Ravenna, and a similar, faceted, surface sparkle.”

I tend to think of still lifes as being small, intimate, but Fish worked large. She was interested not so much in the "still life" itself, as in what it represented, energetically, connectively.  As she put it, "I see light as energy, and energy is always moving through us. I don’t see things as being separated—I don’t paint the objects, I paint one after the other. I paint through the painting."

Fish suffered a brain hemorrhage over ten years ago, which forced her to quit painting. She died on January 1, from another brain hemorrhage, at age 87. 

Here are just a few examples of her beautiful work. She was prolific. (Click to see them large.)

Bird's Nest/Apple Blossoms, 2004

Smucker's Jelly, 1973

Box of Four Red Applies, 1970

Yellow Glass Bowl with Tangerines, 2007

Fruit Juice Glasses, 2005

Five Tall Glasses, Afternoon, 1975

7 Glasses, 13 Pears, 2003

Painted Glasses, 1974

Basket of Shells, 2008

Mirror and Shell, 1981

Preserved Peaches, 1976

Bag of Tangerines, 2000

Here is a 2019 interview with Fish by a filmmaker interested in SOHO, the part of New York City where she once worked.