Iron Sharpens Iron

Louise FishmanWW-1993-090213

1993·Oil on linen·279.4 × 177.8 cm (110 × 70 in.)

In her bold and large-scale paintings, Louise Fishman expands the tradition of Abstract Expressionism through continuous experimenting with composition and form. Exuding a dynamic interplay of fluid gesture and grid, Iron Sharpens Iron exemplifies the vertically oriented compositions of the artist’s work of the early 1990s. Her brushstrokes evoke Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, inspired in part by her daily Buddhist meditation practice. The work’s formal iconography developed out of Fishman’s career-long investigations into the abstract and contemplative qualities of painting.

Catalogue

Year: 1993
Medium: Oil on linen
Dimensions: 279.4 × 177.8 cm (110 × 70 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Louise Fishman

Artist

Louise Fishman

Painting

Louise Fishman was an American abstract painter whose gestural, color-saturated canvases evolved from lyrical abstraction through to bold geometric compositions across five decades. Working primarily in oil and acrylic, her practice engaged with the legacy of postwar abstraction while maintaining a distinctive approach to surface, mark-making, and chromatic intensity. Her work addressed both the formal possibilities of painting and, increasingly in later decades, personal and political identity within the context of lesbian feminism and queer aesthetics.

Philadelphia, PA, USA

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