A newly released book revives the largely forgotten art of Russell FitzGerald (1932–1978), a bi-sexual painter with his early roots in San Francisco’s beat and North Beach poetry scenes, who later became committed to examining his erotic desire for Black men and to understanding the historical forces that prevented the communion between Black and white in the U.S. Art, sex and metaphysics intertwine in his astonishing allegorical paintings that draw promiscuously from history, myth and the Bible. However, FitzGerald found few opportunities to show his pictures during his short and tortured life, which ended at the age of 45 after a long struggle with heroin addiction. No one knew what to make of these ambitious canvases based on his unique and ever-evolving interpretation of Christian mysticism, highly literary and narrative paintings that had more in common with William Blake than with then-dominant Abstract Expressionism or Minimalism.
His work, together with interpretive essays, is now available for the delight of connoisseurs and the curious in a beautifully produced volume edited by art historian Jon Davies, That Directionless Light of the Future: Rediscovering Russell FitzGerald.
