VIENNA.- The American painter, graphic artist and sculptor Eric Fischl (* 1948 in New York) is one of the most important representatives of contemporary figuration. His work is characterised by a style linked with American realism. The compositions, which capture scenes like snapshots, convey the impression of a film clip. The just completed or immediately imminent action is thus often only implied.

Eric Fischl's motifs are often derived from domestic contexts. They describe the everyday and the ordinary, show people in constellations as couples or in interaction, usually scantily clad to nude in an atmosphere dominated by sexuality. The viewer is incorporated into this pictorial world created by Fischl in the role of the voyeur.

The exhibit in the Albertina concentrates on Eric Fischl's graphic works and encompasses a cross-section of his work. In addition to print graphics, works on glassine and chrome coat paper, including Eric Fischl's well-known bathing and beach scenes, several bronze sculptures of the artist are on display and complement the posing figures of the watercolours.

Eric Fischl was born in 1948 in New York and grew up on Long Island. He commenced with his artistic training at the Junior College in Phoenix, Arizona, where he had moved with his family in 1967. He continued his studies at Arizona State University and finally moved to the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he graduated in 1972. Fischl then moved to Chicago, where he worked as an attendant at the Museum of Contemporary Art and came into contact with the artistic avant garde. In 1974 Eric Fischl accepted a position as an art instructor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax. In 1978 he moved to New York, where he lives and works today, in addition to at his residence at Sag Harbor.