Eric Fischl’s first exhibition in Rome was a one-painting show, but what a painting. This was a large oil-on-canvas work entitled Birthday Boy, 1983. The scene is a bedroom, slightly distorted in perspective; on the unmade bed lie an adult woman and an adolescent boy, who presumably is celebrating his birthday. Both are nude. Is the woman his birthday present? She opens her legs without reticence, seemingly offering transition from childhood to puberty. Almost distractedly, the boy touches the woman’s leg, his glance toward her unwillingly oblique. He doesn’t seem at all grateful for the gift