Clemente+Family,+The

Date: 2005
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/2013/2013.72.3_1a.jpg?itok=FNMHEa9h width="406" height="322" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/the-clemente-family-86431"]] || Title: **The Clemente Family**

Artist: **Eric Fischl** Born: New York, New York 1948

Medium: oil on linen Dimensions: 69 x 86 in. (175.3 x 218.4 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the James F. Dicke Family © 2005, Eric Fischl

Accession: 2013.72.3 || Eric Fischl is one of the leading American figure painters. He burst onto the New York art scene in the early 1980s and was among an international cohort of artists who contributed to the renaissance of representational painting during the ensuing decade. Fischl is best known for psychologically and sexually charged scenes of suburban life. His subjects are often shown in precarious or compromising positions. Narrative tension and moral ambiguity abound in these perplexing dramas, revealing Fischl’s skill as an unparalleled storyteller. In recent years, Fischl has increasingly focused on portraits of friends, relatives, and people he admires. He is particularly fond of family portraits in which the complex dynamic between parents, siblings and the artist himself provides as much intrigue as his early fictional worlds. Fischl describes families as the “psychological equivalent of Greek mythology.”
 * About the Artist: **

In the proposed acquisition, Fischl depicts fellow artist Francesco Clemente along with Clemente’s wife, Alba, and their four children. The painting is based on photographs from a two-hour photo shoot at Clemente’s New York studio. Fischl photographed the family as they milled about the space—sitting, standing, talking and occasionally posing. He then scanned the images into Photoshop and collaged individual shots to create an evocative family portrait. Although the compositional arrangement of the final painting is a fictionalized construction, Fischl carefully selected the posture and position of each figure to establish an authentic “psycho-emotional pictorialization” of the Clemente family. Alba’s central position within the composition suggests her role as a powerful matriarch capable of both dividing and unifying the family. Clemente peers impishly from the left side of the painting, his face veiled by shadow. Fischl deliberately depicted his friend and colleague separate from the family unit as a way of commenting on the role of the artist who “stands outside his own reality looking in.” Francesco and Alba’s twin boys hover in the background, almost entirely obscured by shadow, while their daughters, Chiara and Nina, sit in the foreground. The sloping angle of the picture plane forces both Alba and Chiara forward into a dramatic pool of white light—a possible commentary on their dominance within the family structure or their celebrity in the art world. Fischl leaves us to ponder these and more questions about his mysterious portrait of //The Clemente Family//.

Eric Fischl has shown in countless national and international venues. Fischl’s work can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. His most recent solo shows include: //Dive Deep: Eric Fischl and the Process of Painting//, //San Jose Museum of Art//, and //Ten Breaths, Galerie Daniel Templon//, Paris, France. In 2012, Fischl published an autobiography with Michael Stone titled //Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas//.


 * OTHER WORKS BY ARTIST AT THE MUSEUM: ** //What Stands Between the Artist and… //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">,1994, oil on canvas, 72 1/4 x 54 1/8 inches; //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">, 2007-2008, bronze, 23 x 26 x 49 inches; //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Untitled (Group in Water) //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">, color monotype, 36 x 73 1/8 inches; //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Boy, Woman, Dog //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">, 1992, solar plate intaglio, 22 1/4 x 29 3/4 inches; //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Untitled (Sweater) //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">, 1992, solar plate intaglio, 7 3/4 x 5 7/8 inches; //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">Untitled (Jumprope) //<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14.3px;">, 1992, solar plate intaglio, 18 1/2 x 15 inches

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 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Resources: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Artist Biography <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">SAAM Collections Page
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Links: **