• Installation View: Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, August 7–October 16, 2016. Photo: Gary Mamay

Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle

August 7–October 16, 2016


Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle features the work of three artists who met in the early 1970s at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles before moving to New York in the 1980s, where they immediately established careers as influential painters. At a time when painting was thought to have passed its prime, Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl and David Salle discovered, in its materials and conventions, a medium rife with possibilities—particularly for artists interested in doing something original, and ambitious, with its history. Unfinished Businessexplores the distinct styles, philosophies, and convictions of the three painters. Featuring 23 large-scale canvases and 17 works on paper, the exhibition outlines the development of each painter’s formal vocabulary while suggesting deep connections between and among the works of all three.

Unfinished Business is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an introduction by Terrie Sultan, essays by Parrish adjunct curator and exhibition organizer David Pagel and renowned artist Mary Heilmann, an interview with the artists conducted by Sultan and Pagel, and an illustrated chronology. Distributed worldwide by DelMonico Books•Prestel.

Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle is made possible, in part, by the generous support of The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Fund for Publications; the Joseph and Sylvia Slifka Foundation; Jennifer Rice and Michael Forman; Helene and Ziel Feldman & HFZ Capital Group; The Muriel F. Siebert Foundation; Per Skarstedt; Lorinda Ash, Ash Fine Art; The Hilaria and Alec Baldwin Foundation; The Broad Art Foundation; Suzanne and Bob Cochran; Calvin Klein Family Foundation; Mary Boone Gallery; Ninah and Michael Lynne; and Galerie magazine. Public Funding provided by Suffolk County. WSHU is the exclusive radio sponsor of Unfinished Business.