A member of CalArts’s first graduating class, year 1972, Eric Fischl stood apart from his peers, many of whom considered themselves forerunners of a new artistic era. Fischl, by contrast, doubled down on figurative painting, a style then viewed as outdated. He focused on an equally unfashionable subject: American suburbia. As Fischl put it, his work explored “the fallout from middle-class taboos … the unhappiness roiling below the surface of our prim suburban lives.” Divided into four thematic sections, this show puts Fischl’s early art in conversation with more recent work, including pieces like Late America (2016) and Meditations on Melancholia (2020). As figure painting experiences a resurgence, “Stories Told” reminds us of one of its masters, and his decades-long commitment to probing the darker corners of the American experience. —Charlie St John