SCOTT FITZGERALD, painter – printmaker
Scott FitzGerald started his art career when his first grade teacher bought one of his drawings for $ 1.00, but was fined $2.00 when he carved a picture on his wooden desk. Scott refused to have birthday parties after everybody kept giving him crayons. Active throughout the high school years, he continued developing his skills in art and explored a variety of media including photography. He received his Master’s Degree in Arts from California State University, Fullerton in 1974, and went on to teach drawing and printmaking for 2 years at the university.
During his college years, Scott focused his study in contemporary art and photography, creating mixed media works often with social comments. It was not until the sophomore year, he discovered the traditional art of etching in his printmaking class. Immediately, he embraced the complex and difficult technical process of making prints from etching on copper plates. After toiling through the long process and risking the plate in acid bath which could destroyed the image in a few minutes, pulling off a complete print from the press is simply magical to Scott.
Accepting the challenges and risks most of the artists avoid, Scott FitzGerald established himself as a prominent printmaker in the next few years. With a strong interest in history, he accepted a commission to produce a series of etching depicting 15 Orange County historical landmarks. Besides producing very intricate prints in various sizes, he has engaged in many special projects. He worked with renowned English printer John Randle to produce a group of etchings illustrating Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses” at Whittington Press of England. He has also collaborated on a project with science fiction writer Ray Bradbury.
Perhaps Scott’s most ambitious work has been a series of 8 antique shops, rendered in microscopic detail that it took ten years to complete. A 12” x 18” complex print could take 600 to 700 hours to produce. Each new print in the series includes an image of the previous print no bigger than a postage stamp, yet in surprising clarity. He wants to create images that are warm and inviting where there is always something more to discover. He believes good art continues to grow and reveals itself with time.
While having a successful career as a printmaker, Scott extended his creative energy to oil painting in the late 1980s. He dedicated himself full time to paint a few years later. “After many years of microscopic work on metal plates, the fluidity of paint is exhilarating,” commented Scott. While enjoying the freedom and spontaneity of painting, he combines his unique experience to a new medium by building up as many as five separate layers of paints creating rich texture and images with surprising depth. His work has often been compared to the paintings of the Hudson River School and the American Luminists.
Scott is saluted as an artist with the vision of a romantic and the craft of an old master. He enjoys traveling to seek inspiration from nature and to study artworks in museum and galleries around the world. Besides commissioned works, his etching and paintings are in many private and public collections, academic institutes as well as corporations.
