John Anster Christian Fitzgerald (18??-1906)
John Anster Fitzgerald was an artist from Victorian era who made a living with making portraits and historical paintings but is today mostly known by his pictures of fairies. He loved these magical creatures so much he earned a nick name Fairy Fitzgerald from his friends way before his creations, which rarely relied on literary works, became widely popular.
Here is one of his paintings with pretty descriptive title - Fairy Passage:
And, as you may expect continue with few facts from life of the Fairy Fitzgerald:
- He was a son of relatively unknown poet. Apart from Irish origin and artistic talent they shared love for impersonation. John Fitzgerald often imitated famous actors. John's date of birth is unknown, different documents suggest it is between 1819 and 1832. His contemporaries were Richard Dadd (1817-1886), Joseph Noel Paton (1821-1901) and Richard Doyle (1824-1883), if we count only illustrators known by creating fairies.
- Although mostly self though, he managed to continually exhibit in Royal Academy of Arts from 1945 to 1902. Today his name and work are popular enough to attract forgers which occasionally still offer 'new' discoveries from his legacy.
- Making a list of Fairy Fitzgerald's works is a nightmare because he often titled his paintings with names which made sense only to him and his buyers regularly renamed them to make them more descriptive. According to the names and several testimonials the inspiration for imaginative world of John Anster Fitzgerald came from Victorian London's drug scene, mainly from smoking laudanum (opium tincture). Titles like Pipe's Dream confirm this theory.
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