Art Fair paintings has been published by Victoria Miro, London, to accompany the first exhibition by the renowned US artist Eric Fischl at the gallery, in autumn 2014.

Fischl made his reputation in the 1980s with large-scale figurative oil paintings depicting ambiguous, erotically charged scenarios set in the American suburbs. The series in this publication takes as its subject the contemporary art market, depicting art fairs and gallery openings.

The paintings demonstrate the artist’s acute observation of body language and the small details that reflect social relationships, particularly in the heady environment of the art fair, with its charged atmosphere of money and taste, financial and cultural capital.

The paintings are a sharp social satire as much as a loving tribute to the world the artist knows best: the international art scene.

This publication features an essay by Martin Herbert and an in-conversation with Rachel Taylor.