Janet Fish is born on May 18, 1938 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Her father, Peter Fish, is a local art history professor while her mother, Florence Whistler Fish, is a sculptor and potter. Her grandfather is American Impressionist painter Clark Voorhees.
“It was never in my head that I wasn’t going to be an artist. It seemed like the thing to do.”
Shortly her after birth, Janet’s family moves to Bermuda.
“Everyone’s always talking about how I exaggerate color. Well, in Bermuda there are always bright colors around you — seas and flowers and skies, in tropical hues. In the South, they question my colors much less than in New York.”
1940 - Fish and her family move to Lyme, Connecticut for her father’s employment with an electric boat company.
1949 - Fish’s father becomes ill and they move back to Bermuda. There, she takes art classes and works in her mother’s pottery studio. Her father digs up old bottles and keeps them in the windows.
1953 - Tours Italy, Switzerland, and France with her grandmother, Mildred Fish.
1954-1956 - Fish works as an apprentice for artist Byllee Lang in Bermuda. During this time, she becomes inspired by artists like Henry Moore and Alexander Calder.
1956 - Fish enrolls in Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Spending a majority of her time in the art and theater departments, she majors in Practical Art.
1959 - In the summer, Fish attends the Art Students League in New York City and studies under Stephen Greene.
1960 - After her graduation from Smith College, Fish enrolls into Yale University School of Art & Architecture where she studies alongside and befriends fellow artists Chuck Close, Rackstraw Downes, Richard Serra, Brice Marden, Sylvia and Robert Mangold, and Nancy Graves. Her instructors include Alex Katz, Philip Pearlstein, George Schuyler, Si Sillman, and Esteban Vincente.
1962 - In the summer, Fish attends Skowhegan Art School in Maine and grows increasingly dissatisfied with Abstract Expressionism. Inspired by the work of David Park, she starts painting landscapes and, as the weather transitions into winter, she shifts her focus to still lifes. Although she is not supported by her teachers at Yale University, Fish continues to pursue still lifes.
1963 - Fish graduates from Yale University and marries Rackstraw Downes.
1964 - The two of them move to Philadelphia where she works at the Philadelphia Art Museum Shop.
1965 - Fish and Downes divorce and Fish moves to a loft in New York City (76 Jefferson St.) During this time, Fish works multiple part-time jobs to support herself, including doctor’s assistant, writing responses to pen pal letters, and sales clerk in an art supply store.
Janet Fish at Ours Gallery, 1968
1966 - After showing with her former classmate Polly Mudge at the Wilcox Gallery in Swarthmore College, Fish moves to a loft on Bowery St. where she becomes friends with her neighbor, sculptor Louise Nevelson.
1967 - Fish marries labor arbitrator Edward Levin.
1968 - Fish has her first solo show at the Art Gallery of Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey, and another at Ours Gallery in NYC. Fish participates in a short-lived artist co-op on Grand Street with Frank Lincoln Viner and Diane Karol, amongst others. During this time, Fish receives her first of three MacDowell Fellowships and becomes friends with Miyoko Ito, Romulus Linney, and Milton Klonsky.
1969 - Fish and Levin divorce.
1970 - At an artist co-op, Fish begins focusing on transparent and reflective surfaces. She shows at 55 Mercer St. in New York and meets Dorothy Miller through Nevelson, who would eventually come to sell several of her works to the New York Port Authority. Fish receives her second MacDowell Fellowship.
1971 - Fish exhibits for the first time at Kornblee Gallery in New York.
1972 - Fish moves to a loft on Broadway and Bleecker and receives her third MacDowell fellowship.
1973 - During this time, Fish becomes increasingly interested and focused on different compositions of glasses of water in sunlight. In the summer, she teaches at Skowhegan.
1974 - Fish teaches at the Skowhegan School and receives the Harris Award at the 71st Chicago Biennial. She begins to include the landscape seen through glass in paintings.
1975 - Her friends, Jack Beal and Sondra Freckleton, sell her a loft on Prince Street in the same building as Yale classmates Chuck Close and Reeva Potoff. Fish receives a grant to travel and lecture in Australia from the Australian Council of the Arts. During her time there, she visits several artist studios and becomes interested in Australian Aboriginal paintings.
1976 - Fish shows with Phyllis Kind in Chicago and teaches a session at the Art Institute of Chicago.
1979 - She exhibits for the first time at Robert Miller Gallery in New York and begins to include elements of urban landscape into her art, expanding to include non-transparent objects in her still lifes. During this time she meets American artist Charles Parness and acquires a barn in Middleton Springs, Vermont.
1982 - Fish has a one-person show at the Delaware Art Museum. She travels to museums in France, Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands with painter Mary Joan Waid. Fish also meets Kara and Jim Gilmour who eventually will pose for several of her paintings. During this time, Fish begins to include human figures in her work for the first time.
Janet at her Prince Street Studio, 1982
1984 - Fish has a solo show at the Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina. She acquires a house in Wells, Vermont and meets and befriends her new neighbors, the McConnells and the Combs, all of whom would pose for her paintings.
1986 - She shows at her alma mater, Smith College. She travels to England with Charles Parness to see pre-Raphaelite paintings in the municipal museums.
1987 - A monograph is published on Janet Fish, featuring an essay by art critic Gerrit Henry. During this time, Fish abandons pastel medium for health reasons and starts working with watercolor.
1989 - Fish exhibits at the Brevard Art Center and Museum in Florida. She travels to Mexico and is particularly interested in Orozco, Siquieros, and folk art. She also participates in a conference on art business in Moscow, Russia.
1990 - Fish is elected Associate National Academician of the National Academy. She meets Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason and frequently joins them on painting trips along the Connecticut River.
1990 - Fish and Parness are featured in Avenue Magazine sharing on their relationship and her work. Read the full article here.
Charles & Janet, 1991
1991 - Fish shows at Gerald Peters Gallery in New Mexico. She teaches and paints at the Santa Fe Workshop.
1992 - Fish’s work is exhibited at the Orlando Museum of Art.
1992-3 - Aspen Art Museum awards Fish Outstanding Woman in the Arts and she has as a solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Georgia. Awarded Girl Scout Woman of Distinction.
1994 - Fish receives the Award in Art from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, National Academician by the National Academy, and shows with the Grace Borgenicht Gallery in NYC.
Chuck Close, Janet, 1992. Oil on canvas, 100 x 84 inches.
© Chuck Close. Collection of Buffalo AKG Art Museum.
1995 - Fish has a solo exhibition at Yellowstone Art Center in Montana, which travels to the Quincy Art Center, IL; Philbrook Museum of Art, Oklahoma; Wichita Center for the Arts, Kansas; and the University of Wyoming Art Museum, Wyoming.
1997 - A catalogue raisonné of Janet Fish prints is published, compiled by curator Linda Konheim Kramer.
1998 - Solo exhibition at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art. DC Moore Gallery in NYC begins representing Fish.
1999 - Solo exhibition at John Szoke Gallery.
2000 - Fish is awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art from the Lyme Academy and has a solo exhibition at the Columbus Museum.
2001 - The National Academy of Design awards Fish the Henry Ward Ranger Purchase Prize.
2005 - Awarded the William A. Paton Prize by the National Academy Museum.
2006 - Fish marries Charles Parness at their home in Wells, Vermont.
2009 - Fish stops painting because of physical limitations.
2012 - Fish is awarded The Smith College Medal, given annually to alumnae who exemplify in their lives and work the true purpose of a liberal arts education.
