Janet Fish

Janet Isobel Fish (May 18, 1938 – December 11, 2025) was an American contemporary realist artist. Through oil painting, lithography, and screenprinting, she explored the interaction of light with everyday objects in the still life genre. Many of her paintings include elements of transparency (plastic wrap, water), reflected light, was born on May 18, 1938, in Boston, Massachusetts,

Exhibitions

Fish's first solo show was at Rutherford, New Jersey's Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1967 and her first New York exhibition followed two years later. Janet Fish, Glass & Plastic, The Early Years, 1968-1978, DC Moore Gallery, New York, 2016, solo exhibition The Annual 2015: The Depth of the Surface, National Academy of Design, New York, 2015, group exhibition This American Life, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, 2014, group exhibition Fall Fantasy - Small Scale Works, Marianne Friedland Gallery, Naples, FL, 2014, group exhibition Janet Fish, Panoply, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY, 2014, solo exhibition Compelling Images, Makeready Press Gallery, Montclair, NJ, 2013, group exhibition Janet Fish, Recent Paintings, DC Moore Gallery, New York, 2012, solo exhibition Janet Fish, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH, 2006, solo exhibition The Art of Janet Fish, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME, 2004, solo exhibition Janet Fish, LewAllen Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM, 2004, solo exhibition Janet Fish, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, 2003, solo exhibition New York Exhibition, 1969, solo exhibition Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1967, solo exhibition Recognition The catalog of Fish's University of Richmond exhibition reported that critic Gerrit Henry had described Fish as an acknowledged master of the contemporary still life.

A writer for The New York Times said that Fish's "ambitious still life painting helped resuscitate realism in the 1970s" and that she imbued everyday objects with a "bold optical and painterly energy". Harris Award, Chicago Biennale, 1974 Australia Council for Arts Grant, 1975 Elected into the National Academy of Design as Associate National Academician, 1990, and National Academician, 1994 Hubbard Museum Award, 1991 Aspen Art Museum Woman in Arts Award, 1993 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, 1994 Bermuda National Gallery Canton Museum of Art Cleveland Museum of Art Columbia Museum of Art Dallas Museum of Art Dayton Art Institute Farnsworth Art Museum Harn Museum of Art Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College Metropolitan Museum of Art Mount Holyoke College Art Museum Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Modern Art, New York Museum of Victoria National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. North Carolina Museum of Art Orlando Museum of Art Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Smith College Museum of Art Smithsonian American Art Museum Westmoreland Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art Wichita Art Museum Yale University Art Gallery