Portrait of a Dog
Eric Fischl
American, born 1948
1987
A large four-panel oil on canvas in which Eric Fischl stages fragmented, jarringly lit domestic vignettes—a nude at a bathtub, a leashed dog, a man by a toilet, and a close-up of a glass—to probe the private, uneasy psychology of suburban life.
The painting hits with a cold green‑blue light, cinematic shadows and off‑kilter, overlapping panels that fracture the scene into voyeuristic glimpses, the expressive brushwork and the dog’s alertness turning an ordinary interior into a quietly tense moment.
A key example of 1980s neo‑figurative painting, it helped reinvigorate large‑scale narrative oil painting by making the psychic tensions and discontents of middle‑class domesticity the subject of ambitious, confrontational canvases.
Medium
Oil on canvas, four panels
Dimensions
9' 5" x 14' 2 3/4" (287 x 433.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the Louis and Bessie Alder Foundation, Inc., Seymour M. Klein, President, Agnes Gund, President's Fund Purchase (1987), Donald B. Marron, President; Jerry I. Speyer; the Douglas S. Cramer Foundation, Philip Johnson, Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, Barbara Jakobson, Gerald S. Elliott, and purchase
Accession
190.1987.a-d
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
