ERIC FISCHL
Eric Fischl is an internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Fischl was born in 1948 in New York City and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island. He began his art education in Phoenix, Arizona where his parents had moved in 1967. He attended Phoenix College and earned his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972. He then spent some time in Chicago, where he worked as a guard at the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1974, he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Fischl had his first solo show, curated by Bruce W. Ferguson, at Dalhousie Art Gallery in Nova Scotia in 1975 before relocating to New York City with his future wife, April Gornik, in 1978.
Fischl’s paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions, and his work is represented in many museums, as well as prestigious private and corporate collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modem Art in New York City, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, St. Louis Art Museum, Louisiana Museum of Art in Denmark, Musée Beaubourg in Paris, to name a few. In November 2025, there will be a survey of Fischl’s 50-year art career at the Phoenix Art Museum.
Throughout his artistic life, Fischl has had the good fortune to collaborate on various book projects with E.L. Doctorow, Allen Ginsberg, Jamaica Kincaid, Jerry Saltz and Frederic Tuten. He co-authored with Michael Stone, a memoir titled Bad Boy: My Life On and Off the Canvas that was published in 2013.
Among his passion for art education and community building through creativity, he has created scholarships and internships for young artists and art students. In 2021, along with his wife April, he co-founded The Church, a community art center and artist residency in Sag Harbor. To date, it is their most ambitious project and one they are most proud of.
Eric Fischl recently completed his tenure as president of Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts, during which time he founded their thriving Community Artists-in-Residence program. He is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.
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LINDA LINDENBAUM
Linda Lindenbaum, a lifelong resident of New York City, is passionate about her involvement in cultural, educational, and artistic programs. Her current affiliations include Guild Hall of East Hampton (member of the Board of Trustees), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (member of the Chairman’s Council; member of the Major Gifts Committee, member of the Visiting Committee for Modern and Contemporary Art, and a member of the Visiting Committee of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing), The Morgan Library and Museum (Member of the Director’s Roundtable), Riverdale Country School (Trustee Emeritus), American Friends of the Israel Museum (member of the Board of Directors and a member of the Executive Committee), and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice (member of the Advisory Board).
Lindenbaum was a member of the New York City Cultural Council from 1974-1978 and from 1994-1998. She was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation from 2007-2015. She graduated from Riverdale Country School, Class of 1954, and Mount Holyoke College, Class of 1958.
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SUSAN STROMAN
A five-time Tony Award winning director and choreographer most known for Crazy For You, Contact, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Producers. Her work has been honored with Olivier, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Lucille Lortel and a record six Astaire Awards. Stroman is currently directing the new Broadway musical SMASH, slated to open at the Imperial Theatre on April 10, 2025.
She directed and choreographed The Producers, winner of a record-making 12 Tony Awards including Best Direction and Best Choreography. She co-created, directed, and choreographed the Tony Award-winning musical Contact for Lincoln Center Theater, which was honored with a 2003 Emmy Award for “Live from Lincoln Center.”
She directed and choreographed the critically acclaimed musical The Scottsboro Boys on Broadway and in the West End, where it was honored with the 2014 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.
Other Broadway credits include Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Prince of Broadway, Bullets Over Broadway, Big Fish, Young Frankenstein, Thou Shalt Not, The Music Man, The Frogs, Big, Steel Pier, Picnic, and Crazy for You.
Off-Broadway credits include: The Beast in the Jungle, Dot, Flora the Red Menace, And the World Goes ’Round, Happiness and The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville starring Mandy Patinkin and Taylor Mac.
For ten years she choreographed Madison Square Garden’s annual spectacular A Christmas Carol. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut directing and choreographing The Merry Widow, starring Renée Fleming.
Her London West End productions include Crazy For You, Oklahoma!, Show Boat, Contact, The Producers, and Young Frankenstein.
For New York City Ballet, she created Double Feature, a full-length ballet featuring the music of Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson, and For the Love of Duke, featuring the music of Duke Ellington.
Other ballet credits include But Not For Me for the Martha Graham Company and Take Five…More or Less for Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her choreography received an Emmy-Award nomination for the HBO presentation Liza – Live from Radio City Music Hall, starring Liza Minnelli. She received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures feature film Center Stage. She directed and choreographed The Producers: The Movie Musical, nominated for 4 Golden Globes.
She directed and choreographed the Broadway bound Ahrens/Flaherty musical Marie for The 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle. In collaboration with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, she directed the play Photograph 51 for Audible.
She is an Associate Director for Lincoln Center Theater, a member of the Board of Directors for the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts located at the World Trade Center, and the newly appointed president of Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts.
She is the recipient of the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater and an inductee of the Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.
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