Edward Franklin Fisk

Rooftops, New York City, about 1916

oil on canvas

24 x 18 in.

Gift of Allethaire Hendricks and Milton Fisk

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Edward Fisk was born in New York City. By his late teens he had decided to make art his career and attended classes at the Art Students League in New York after which he took classes at the National Academy of Design before training under Robert Henri. There he met Stuart Davis, who would become remain his friend throughout his life.  After studying in New York, Fisk went to Paris where he continued his studies at the Académie Moderne.  During his year in Paris, he became part of the avant-garde attending evening gatherings at the home of Gertrude and Leo Stein.  Upon returning to America, Fisk continued his interest in modernism and often visited Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery where he saw exhibitions of the most important avant-garde artists from America and abroad.  Fisk never achieved the reputation of his colleagues and taught at the University of Kentucky while trying to become part of the mainstream of American modernism. 

The sharp lines, geometric shapes and flat areas of color place Rooftops within the Precisionist style.  Precisionism was influenced by industrial development such as skyscrapers and factories, and shows images painted with machine-like quality frozen in time like a photograph.  Skyscrapers appear to be Fisk’s interest in this work which focuses on the skylight and soaring windows in this building.  The contrast of interior lighting and the exterior darkness creates a strikingly dramatic image of a modern structure.  This is an unusual example within Fisk’s typical depictions of intensely colored, minimally abstracted compositions that represent the farms and towns of Kentucky and Vermont.

Reference

Rachel Sadinsky, William G. Sackett. Edward Fisk: American Modernist, Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1998.  ISBN: 1882007166