Eric Fischl

Neo-expressionist painter Eric Fischl achieved recognition in the 1980s for his figurative paintings exploring suburban adolescent sexuality, as in Sleepwalker (1979), which depicts a boy hunched over in a plastic pool, masturbating. His work commonly exposes the dark, disturbing undercurrents of American life; his unconventional 9/11 memorial sculpture, Tumbling Woman (2001), was removed from public view amid controversy. Fischl is also the founder of the “America: Now and Here” project, a mobile museum and performance space that will tour the U.S. for two years.

American, b. 1948, New York, New York, based in Sag Harbor, New York.