John Kelly Fitzpatrick

John Kelly Fitzpatrick (1888–1953) was a regionalist American painter from Alabama.

Biography

Early life John Kelly Fitzpatrick was born in 1888 in Wetumpka, Alabama. His father, Phillips Fitzpatrick (1830–1901), was a physician, and his mother was Jane Lovedy Kelly (1850–1913). He was inspired by French painters like Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), and Henri Matisse (1869–1954). In 1938 and 1939, he was commissioned by the federal government as part of the Public Works of Art Project to produce paintings, including murals inside the newly constructed post offices in the towns of Ozark, Alabama titled Early Industry of Dale County and in Phenix City, Alabama titled Cotton.

In 1933, Fitzpatrick co-founded the Dixie Art Colony with Sallie B. Carmichael and her daughter Warree Carmichael LeBron. The idea was to establish an artist colony to paint and train burgeoning artists in the South. Additionally, some of his paintings can be found in the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery as well as the Johnson Collection in Spartanburg, South Carolina and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Death He died of a heart attack on April 18, 1953. Hillbilly Barn Dance (Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Department of Archives and History, 1945). Minuet (Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Department of Archives and History, 1947). Swinging on the Grapevine (Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Department of Archives and History, 1948).

Secondary sources John Kelly Fitzpatrick: Retrospective Exhibition (Montgomery, Alabama: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1970). A Symphony of Color: The World of Kelly Fitzpatrick (Montgomery: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1991). Dixie Art Colony Foundation (Wetumpka: Dixie Art Colony Foundation, 2017).