Isabel Bishop
(1902-1988)

Isabel Bishop studied at the Wicker Art School in Detroit and the New York Applied Design For Women after which she worked with Max Webber in his –cubist period. Bishop’s early style was tonal and realistic with figures seemingly transfixed in mid-gesture. She switched mentors, studying with Kenneth Hayes Miller. Who taught her Renaissance techniques he had adapted to contemporary subjects. After surviving three suicide attempts in the 1920’s, Bishop emerged as an acclaimed painter of the female figure and urban working class. She observed her subjects from her Union Square studio and was the only female member of the “14th Street School”.

By the 1930s Bishop’s work lost some of its rigid solidarity, becoming more ghost like and ephemeral. She referred to this quality as the “implication of unfixity”. Her recent work is more abstract with complex dots and dashes. Bishop has also become well known for her sensitive and introspective nudes.