Education

            1987 MFA University of California, San Diego
            1976 MA San Francisco State University, San Francisco
            1974 Pennsylvania State University, University Park
            1973 London Film School, London
            1973 BFA University of Illinois, Urbana

One-Person Exhibitions

2024
Hal Fischer: Unseen, Et al., San Francisco, CA

2021
Hal Fischer: Photographs: Seriality, Sexuality, Semiotics, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL

2019
Gay Semiotics and Other Works, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland
18th near Castro Street/Boy-Friends, Project Native Informant, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland

2018
Inbox:  Hal Fischer, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2017
Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics, Project Native Informant, London, UK

2015
Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics, Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA
Situation #8: Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics 1977/2014, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics, Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles, CA

1980
Hal Fischer, New Image Gallery, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, PA
Sommerpause – European Snapshots, ASUC Studio, University of California, Berkeley, CA

1979
Photo-Narratives, Lawson de Celle Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1977
Photospectus, Reading Museum of Art, Reading, PA
Hal Fischer, Lawson de Celle Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2023
Photography and Language, Collection, 1950s–1970s, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

2022
In Focus: Writing for the Camera, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2021
Language, Sequence, Structure: Photographic Works by Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips, and Hal Fischer
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, FOMU, Antwerp, BE; Luma Foundation, Arles, FR

2020
Thought Pieces: 1970s Photographs of Lew Thomas, Donna-Lee Phillips and Hal Fischer, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Titan, Kurimanzutto, New York, NY
Manifesta 13, Les Parallèles du Sud, Furiosa Studio, Monaco
Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
Direct Message: Art, Language, and Power, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

2019
Art Since 1948, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
CAMP: Notes on Fashion, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Art after Stonewall 1969 - 1989, Grey Art Gallery, NYU, and Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, New York, NY

2018
West by Midwest, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
25 Years! Shared Histories, Shared Stories, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Putting Out, Gavin Brown Enterprise, New York, NY

2017
Histories of Sexuality, Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo, BR

2016
Witness, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
California and the West: Photography from the Campaign for Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

2015
Richard Wright: Nine Chains To The Moon (Chapter 3), BQ, Berlin, Germany

2011
Under the Big Black Sun, California Art 1974–1981, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA

1984
Photography in California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (traveling exhibition), San Francisco, CA

1981
Photographs and Words: An Exhibition, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

1980
San Francisco Imprint: Photographic Projects, curated by Hal Fischer, Franklin Furnace, New York, NY

1979
Hal Fischer, Donna-Lee Phillips, Meyer Hirsch, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, D.C
Problematic Photography, CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Attitudes: Photography in the 1970s, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
The Photographic Billboard Show, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA

1978
Contemporary California Photography, Buffalo State University, Buffalo, NY
Contemporary California Photography, Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Postcard Show, Tyson Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1977
Photo-Linguists, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Photoerotica, Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1976
Photography and Language, La Mamelle, San Francisco, CA
New Photographics, Central Washington State University, Ellensburg, WA
Alternative Processes, Camerawork Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Monographs

        Gay Semiotics, NFS Press, San Francisco, 1978
        18th near Castro Street x 24, NFS Press, San Francisco, 1979
Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies, San Francisco, Gallery 16 Editions, 2019

Public Collections

Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA
FOMU, Antwerp, Belgium
Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA           
Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Verbund Collection, Vienna, Austria
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT