The Art Newspaper reports that Eric Fischl, the painter known for his surreal images of suburbia, is leaving Mary Boone Gallery after more than 30 years. The news comes as a surprise, considering an interview between Mary Boone and Fischl, pointed out by The Art Newspaper, which was published in the October 2014 issue of Interview. “One of the reasons I wanted to show with you was that you were a nexus for my generation of artists who were beginning to bend the dialogue from what was going on in the ’60s and ’70s,” Fischl told Boone in that interview. “You were beginning to turn it into something else, which I felt more connected to.”
Boone, who represented many of the most successful artists of the ’80s, reciprocates Fischl’s enthusiasm in the interview. She first saw Fischl’s work in 1979, when David Salle brought her to Fischl’s studio, and she admitted she didn’t understand his work. Then, when she saw Fischl’s work again in 1982 at Sidney Janis Gallery, something changed. “Yes, I fell upon this kind of unexpected thing and I loved it,” Boone told Fischl. “When I want to possess something, that’s the real visceral indication that I want to work with an artist.” Fischl’s first show at the gallery came only two years later, in 1984.
“I think he has decided that the art world and the market have changed so much that he wants to concentrate on making his work, and distance himself from being represented by a gallery,” Ron Warren, a director and partner at Mary Boone Gallery, told The Art Newspaper. “We respect that and will continue to have a good relationship with him.”
Fischl, whose most recent show at Mary Boone Gallery was in 2012, could not be reached for a comment.