Janet Fish, 1985-1986

Janet Fish
John Hutcheson, printer
1985-1986

Workshop: October 21-25, 1985

Janet Fish, Smith College class of 1960, was born in Boston in 1938 into an artistic family. Her grandfather, uncle, and mother were artists, and her father was an art historian. She studied sculpture and printmaking at Smith and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and was one of the first women to receive an M.F.A. from Yale University. Her luminous canvases, populated with brightly colored objects and light reflective surfaces in dynamic arrangements, seem to be more about the materials and actions of painting than the objects in the image.

As an alumna and a noted painter with significant experience making prints, Fish was a natural choice for the second Smith College Print Workshop. Her openness with students and willingness to share her experiences with them made her particularly effective in advancing the teaching aims of the workshop. In an article in the winter 1986 SmithAlumnae Quarterly, student Karen Cuchel (class of 1986) described the ways students participated in the workshop and remarked: “Discussions between Hutcheson and Fish and members of the faculty seemed to echo the problems we face in our own student projects.”

Because there was not enough time to print all eleven colors by lithography, Dwight Pogue printed seven of the colors in silkscreen while John Hutcheson printed four colors in lithography. This was the first time Fish used the silkscreen process. After this successful experience she went on to produce many silkscreen editions with the printer/publishers Stewart & Stewart in Michigan.

Janet Fish. American, 1938 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cuKV2Aj4Mo