Janet Fish: Paintings [Hardcover]

Vincent Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2002

Still life painter Janet Fish is noted for her dynamic oil paintings and watercolors, through which she "captures the beauty of everyday objects." She has won praise for her exuberant brushstrokes and dazzling composition, but it is the movement of light and color shimmering off bowls, glasses, bottles, cellophane, and other iridescent and reflective surfaces that gives her work its distinctive allure. This lovely volume is the only monograph now available on this renowned artist; a previous book on her paintings, published in the 1980s, is now a collector's item that sells for hundreds of dollars.

In this new, lavishly illustrated work, published with the cooperation of the artist, poet Vincent Katz combines brilliant prose with incisive art criticism to provide a stunning overview of this important artist's work.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the confluence of minimalism, Pop art and photorealism, Fish arrived on the art scene in the late 60s with a kind of Pop nominalism of stark images of everyday objects (jars, fruit) that gleamed as if they were haloed in sunlight. The lavish plays of color and reflection she captured were balanced by a neat modesty of composition: water glasses on a window sill, Windex bottles against a creamy, Thiebaudian backdrop, peels of cellophane glistening. Quickly, however, the paintings became virtuosic to the point of clutter, with piles of flowers, fruits, toys, cut glass and leaded crystal sparkling over wrinkled tablecloths or mirrored surfaces, all rendered in a brilliant fauvist palette that fit the ornate subject matter like a glove. Orange Bowl and Yellow Apples (1980) is a riot of color, while Double Rainbow (1996) places Fish's familiar still life outdoors, against the backdrop of a sky that has just stopped its torrents of rain. With a mild essay by poet and art critic Katz, which offers a concise overview of the artist's progress from Yale to now, this large (but rather thin) catalogue captures the progress of a sharp-eyed painter from ambitious outbreak to long middle career of haute-bourgeois prosperity. As Katz says, "Her paintings of things can be seen as...beautiful objects that convey no message, that cause the mind to stop thinking and to contemplate the marvel before one's eyes."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (October 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810932989
• ISBN-13: 978-0810932982
• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 12.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Katz'n'Fish, August 9, 2005

By 

ATHENA "ONE SMART WOMAN" (Ontario, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Janet Fish: Paintings (Hardcover)

Vincent Katz illustrates his discussion in the development of Fish's style and areas of exploration with colour plates of her work large enough to be seen and enjoyed. Janet Fish works in monumental size and the large page format of this book - while hardly close to the sizes of her canvases - helps the viewer visualize these pieces closer to context. I would have enjoyed more input from the artist in the form of discussion about her techinical approachs to such large surface area, or her colour response toward light. However, I was very satisfied with this particular book and would recommend it, especially to someone with a beginning interest in the work of Janet Fish.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Janet Fish: Paintings, August 1, 2006

By 

Helen Opie "art-book connoiseur" (Nova Scotia, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Janet Fish: Paintings (Hardcover)

A true treasure of a book; the author's text is informative, cogent, and connective; connecting Fish to other artists of her time and before her time. I had not been a true Fish fan before I read this book, because sometimes my (bad) eyes cannot take in all that she can squeeze into one painting. The information gleaned from reading the text and looking at the reproductions being talked about has widened my appreciation of her, and also awakened me more to the influences of the Abstract Expressionists and other non-objective painters of the Fifties by showing me how much their emphasis on design permeates her very realistic work. Once again, I see that design (composition) rules, whether the work is realistic or abstract or totally non-objective.

If you want to take in art history painlessly, want to grow as a painter yourself, read and study and absorb this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Janet Fish: Paintings, August 8, 2008

By 

D. Goodenberger - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Janet Fish: Paintings (Hardcover)

This book is beautiful, amazing and insightful! The art images fill the pages with color and I could look at them for hours. The imformation at the beginning of the book is insightful and helped me to realize what a major American artist Janet Fish is.