Born 1902, Cincinnati, Ohio
Died 1988, Riverdale, New York.

Bishop is a noted New York etcher and painter who concentrated on the figure, usually female and the urban scenes of New York. She let a studio on Union Square in New York in 1926 and worked there and at several subsequent locations on the Square for almost sixty years until 1984. Many of her etchings are of scenes of and around the square, always focusing on the people. She studied in Detroit and New York at the School of Applied Design for Women and also at the Art Students League with Kenneth Hayes Miller. (A study of etchings by Bishop and Miller will reveal similarities.)

Union Square was the home to many artists in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s including Reginald Marsh, the Soyer brothers, Ben Shahn and Hayes Miller - all referred to as the “14th Street School”. Bishop was in the Treasury Relief Arts Project where she received the commission for a Post Office mural in New Lexington, Ohio in 1938. By the 1960’s the demographics of the Square were changing and her methods changed also. She began to use aquatint and include more figures in her works.

Most of her etchings have a focus on women, either singly or in pairs and as such they show, as was rarely done, images of women interacting and in a positive manner.

The number of cataloged prints to her credit totals about 117, including various states and paintings total something near 200. Bishop pulled all of her own prints up until 1977. After that printing was done under Bishop’s direction by Stephen Sholinsky of Stem Graphics, New York. All prints by Sholinsky bear his “SS” chop mark. She limited her editions to 30 but some were never printed in full editions. Printings done by others, such as Associated American Artists had a higher edition run.

The reference catalogue raisonne of her prints is Isabel Bishop; Etchings, Engravings and Aquatints, 2000 revised edition by Susan Teller.

Her exhibition list is quite long, running from 1930 and including a retrospective in 1975 at the Whitney and in 1989 at Midtown Galleries in New York. She taught briefly at the Art Students League in the 1930’s and at the Skowhegan School, Maine briefly in the 1950’s