Around the globe, April Gornik is known as one of the world’s most celebrated landscape painters, whose name is often sprinkled into conversations, and on museum walls, with the likes of Hockney, Turner, and Monet.
But around Sag Harbor, she’s also known as Wonder Woman.
Okay, maybe not exactly. But North Haven resident Gornik is involved in myriad causes to protect the environmental and cultural aspects of the area she and her husband, the artist Eric Fischl, choose to call home. She cofounded the Sag Harbor Partnership, which currently is the platform for the renovation of the Sag Harbor Cinema, she and Fischl have preserved acres of wetlands, the Eastville Historical Society, and there is much more. She even came up with a way to fish for sharks without hurting them. For real.
Gornik has been the recipient of Guild Hall’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. But back to Sag Harbor. Gornik is passionate about the history of the area – and not just the environmental and artistic history, but the industrial history as well.