Doris Fish: Ego as Artform

April 21, 2023 - March 10 2024

About the Exhibition

“Glamour first! Glamor last!! Glamor Always!!!”

- Princess Angel in Vegas in Space

Doris Fish was larger than life. So were her talent, her ambition, and her ego. She attended the Julien Ashton Art School in Sydney and when everyone was painting hard-edged, Op-Art influenced work, Doris was painting 1930s-style portraits, usually of herself – always in drag. Then Doris hit upon the sexy 1960s. Big wigs! Fake tits! Mini skirts! And in some ways, she never left. Even Doris’ crowning achievement, the cult film Vegas in Space, was promoted as, “An outer space, adventure musical comedy dealing with the glamorous irrational behavior on an all-female pleasure planet in the 23rd century, set in the 60s.”

Whether on canvas, on screen, or on stage, Doris believed bigger was better and more was never enough. Doris’ art and drag are filled with glamour. Her paintings use a mix of make-up and paint. On stage Doris painted her teeth, so they’d appear whiter. In 1986 Doris told Craig Seligman, who later became her biographer, “Face it, if I could paint my eyeballs, I would.”

Doris’ art effused an exaggeration of beauty that she called, The Hollywood Version. It’s at the heart of her art, her drag, and her life.

The exhibition coincides with the release of a new book by Craig Seligman, Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?: Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag.

About the Curator

Ms. Bob Davis (she/her/hers) is the founder and director of the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive (LLTA), a sponsored project of the GLBT Historical Society. In the 1990s she served two terms on the GLBT Historical Society Board of Directors. Learn more about LLTA at lltransarchive.org.