Kurt Edward Fishback
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer noted for his portraits of other artists and photographers. Kurt was born in Sacramento, CA in 1942. Son of photographer Glen Fishback and namesake of photographer Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
, he was exposed to art photography at an early age as his father's friends included Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
, Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
and Wynn Bullock
Wynn Bullock
Wynn Bullock is a recognized American master photographer of the 20th Century whose work is included in over 90 major museum collections around the world...
. Kurt studied art at Sacramento City College
Sacramento City College
Sacramento City College is a two-year community college located in Sacramento, California. SCC is part of the Los Rios Community College District and had an enrollment of 25,307 in 2009. Sacramento City College is officially accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges , offering...
, SFAI, Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
and UC Davis where he received his Master of Fine Arts Degree studying with Robert Arneson
Robert Arneson
Robert Carston Arneson was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for four decades.- Career :...
, Roy DeForest, William Wiley
William Wiley
William Wiley was a sailor of the United States Navy in the 19th century who served in the First Barbary War.Besides a few details of his service in the Navy, little is known of the life of William Wiley. He entered the Navy on 2 April 1803 and was assigned to the schooner Enterprise in the...
and Manuel Neri
Manuel Neri
Manuel Neri is an American sculptor, painter, and printmaker and a notable member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.- Biography :...
. Ceramic Sculpture was the first medium that gained him high visibility in the Art World. Kurt took up photography in 1962 when he asked his Father to teach him. After finishing graduate work and teaching fine art media at several colleges, Kurt was asked to teach at his father's school of photography in Sacramento. The series of artist portraits which now number over 250 were begun in 1979.
Since 1963 Kurt has been involved in many solo and group exhibitions including; SFMOMA, and Crocker Art Museum
Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is one of the leading arts institutions in California, and the longest continuously operating art museum in the West. Located in Sacramento, California, the Crocker has been an art innovator since 1885...
. His work is represented in many public, private and corporate collections including; SFMOMA, SFAI, and Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY.
Today, Kurt lives in Sacramento, California with his wife Cassandra Reeves. He exhibits at galleries and museums, teaches photography at American River College
American River College
American River College is a California community college located in the southern edge of unincorporated Foothill Farms in Sacramento County, California....
, and has published several books including a book of portraits of California artists entitled, Art in Residence: West Coast Artists in Their Space (see illustration). The book includes portraits of 74 artists, including Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
, Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate...
, Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago
Judy Chicago is a feminist artist, author, and educator.Chicago has been creating artwork since the mid 1960s. Her earliest forays into the art world coincided with the rise of Minimalism, which she eventually abandoned in favor of art she believed to have greater content and relevance...
, Brett Weston
Brett Weston
Brett Weston was an American photographer and grew up in LA. He was the second son of photographer Edward Weston. Van Deren Coke, former curator of the San Francisco Museum of Art referred to Brett Weston as the "child genius of American photography." Brett began taking photographs in 1925 and...
, and Jock Sturges
Jock Sturges
Jock Sturges is an American photographer, best known for his images of nude adolescents and their families, primarily taken at communes in Northern California and at the Atlantic-coast naturist resort at Montalivet, France. His work has been the subject of controversy...
. Other artist portraits made by Kurt include Cornell Capa
Cornell Capa
Cornell Capa was a Hungarian American photographer, member of Magnum Photos, and photo curator, and the younger brother of photo-journalist and war photographer Robert Capa. Graduating from Imre Madách Gymnasium in Budapest, he initially intended to study medicine, but instead joined his brother...
, André Kertész
André Kertész
André Kertész , born Kertész Andor, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition...
, Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, portraiture, and advertising photography. She has had 16 collections of her work published and has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including three Robert F...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
and Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men...
.
Kurt is represented by Appel Photography Gallery in Sacramento, CA and The Camera Obscura Gallery in Denver, CO.
Books
- Art in Residence: West Coast Artists in Their Space. (2000), ISBN 0-936085-59-2
- Portrait of the Artist. (2008), ISBN 978-1-4357-5429-4
- Nature Mandalas. (2010), ISBN 978-0-557-42232-6
- Cloud Mandalas. (2010), ISBN 978-0-557-45201-9