Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s

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 Business explores 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.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether you go or not, the exhibition catalog, Unfinished Business: Paintings From the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl and David Salle, charts the creative journeys of painters, colleagues and friends Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle. Rach came into his own during the 1970s when they graduated from the California Institute of Arts and developed painting styles that would characterize their work for decades to come. The book examines nine paintings and accompanying drawings by each artist made between 1975 and 1985, juxtaposing them in aspects of structure and purpose that have not been previously acknowledged. 

Featured texts include a reflection by Mary Heilmann, a timeline organized by Witt Kegel and Sarah Silverstein, an analytical essay by David Pagel, and an introduction by Terrie Sultan that draws on intimate interviews in which the artists expound upon their vision and goals in art school, their subsequent move to New York, and the friendship that continues to inspire and motivate each of them in their current homes on Long Island.