A major exhibition exploring several notable series created by figurative painter Eric Fischl is coming to Phoenix Art Museum.

“Eric Fischl: Stories Told,” guest curated by Heather Sealy Lineberry, Curator Emeritus at the Arizona State University Art Museum, will be on view at Phoenix Art Museum from Nov. 7, 2025, through June 14, 2026.

The exhibition celebrates Fischl’s career-long commitment to depict the human figure amid middle-class suburban settings inspired by his childhood and personal experiences.

“Phoenix Art Museum is honored to premiere ‘Eric Fischl: Stories Told’ in the very city where Fischl began his artistic career,” Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, shared in a press release. “For decades, Eric Fischl’s painting, drawing, and sculptural practice have garnered tremendous art-world acclaim, especially from artists with a particular interest in the human figure. In addition to his international stature, Fischl has had a profound impact on the Phoenix arts scene.”

The showing will be the first full-scale, solo exhibition of Fischl’s art since 2018.

Fischl (b. 1948) grew up in Long Island, New York, and Phoenix where he attended Phoenix College and Arizona State University in the late 1960s. After studying under contemporary landscape painter Merrill Mahaffey, Fischl received his B.F.A. in 1972 as part of the first graduating class at the California Institute for the Arts.

The upcoming exhibition brings together approximately 40 large-scale works that prominently display Fischl’s consistency in and commitment to painting the human form within the context of middle-class America. Organized into four thematic sections, the exhibition showcases Fischl’s well-known early paintings and works on paper in conversation with paintings from series created later in Fischl’s career, including “Late America,” “My Old Neighborhood,” “Presence of an Absence,” “Complications from an Already Unfulfilled Life,” “Melancholia,” and “Hotel Stories.”

“For more than 45 years, Eric Fischl has used figurative painting to examine the defining social issues and current events of our time,” Lineberry stated.

“Eric Fischl: Stories Told” is accompanied by a fully illustrated, 160-page catalogue published by Scala Arts Publishers, Inc., with an introduction by Lineberry and various essays.

Eric Fischl, “Barbeque,” 1982. Oil on canvas. Steve Martin and Anne Stringfield.

(Image courtesy of the artist © 2025 Eric Fischl)