Richard Fiscus; painter, dean of SF Art Institute
Hyfler/Rosner
Art Institute
Jesse Hamlin, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
Richard Fiscus, a Bay Area painter who taught humanities and
served as dean of students at the San Francisco Art
Institute for 40 years, died Thursday of heart failure at
Kaiser Hospital in San Rafael. He was 79.
A much-loved figure at the Art Institute, where he taught
English and other non-art courses and chaired the humanities
department, Mr. Fiscus was a self-taught artist who took up
the brush in the 1960s, creating a personal style of
landscape painting and printmaking noted for its bold color
and fluid, simplified forms.
Mr. Fiscus' work was widely exhibited around the Bay Area
and beyond and found its way into public, corporate and
private art collections. San Francisco's Fine Arts Museums
has a set of Mr. Fiscus' 1976 print series "Golden Gate
Suite,'' which includes images of Fort Point, Lands End and
Baker Beach. Other works are owned by the Brooklyn Museum,
Bank of America and Paramount Pictures. His work appeared in
the 1972 Woody Allen film "Play It Again, Sam,'' which was
shot in San Francisco.
Mr. Fiscus "never runs out of vital new things to say about
the familiar Bay Area landscape,'' the late Chronicle art
critic Tom Albright wrote in 1968, reviewing a show at the
Reese Palley Gallery, and "has developed his style into a
new, intriguingly precarious balance between naturalism and
out-and-out abstraction. ... Fiscus' paintings are first of
all brilliantly decorative, charged with intense colors and
vibrant with surface and movement.''
Born in Stockton, Mr. Fiscus grew up in San Anselmo and took
the train to Tamalpais High School. After serving as a
cryptographer in the Navy, he attended the College of Marin
and then UC Berkeley, where he received his bachelor's
degree in 1949. He did graduate work in education at Cal and
got his master's degree from Ohio State University.
Mr. Fiscus taught elementary school in Stockton and Richmond
in the early 1950s, and lectured on the need for arts
education. In 1954, he was guest instructor in arts
education at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. In
1955, the Art Institute, then called the California School
of Fine Arts, hired Mr. Fiscus to teach "Problems of
Teaching Art.'' Over the next 40 years, he served in many
capacities there, including dean of students and chairman of
interdepartmental studies. He retired in 1995.
"He was a great friend and a wonderful spirit around this
place,'' said Jeff Gunderson, the Art Institute's longtime
librarian. "He had a huge impact on legions of students. He
knew people in every department. He'd meet them early on,
watched them progress and watched them make a life in the
arts. He had a great sense of humor and was always there for
them. Students gravitated to him.''
Mr. Fiscus is survived by his former wife, Lois. His
longtime companion, Howard Long, died a few years ago.
No memorial has been planned. Contributions in Mr. Fiscus'
memory can be made to the San Francisco Art Institute, 800
Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA 94133.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO
Richard Fiscus created a personal style of artwork noted for
its bold color and fluid forms.