Maier Museum of Art
Lynchburg, VA
(804) 947-8136
Zelda Fitzgerald: Alice
in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales
The Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon
Woman's College has brought together five of the six watercolors from Zelda
Fitzgerald's Alice in Wonderland series for a special exhibition that runs
Oct. 22-Dec. 23, 1998. The exhibit, which includes eight of her other paintings,
which depict children's fairy tales and nursery rhymes, is called "Zelda
Fitzgerald: Alice in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales." The exhibition
was inspired by a 1997 gift to the Maier of Zelda's painting "The Lobster
Quadrille" by Arlyn Firkins Bruccoli '55.
Fitzgerald, an accomplished writer and dancer, and the
wife of acclaimed author F. Scott Fitzgerald, began painting in 1925 when
she took her first lesson. After an emotional breakdown in 1930 she was
encouraged by doctors in Switzerland to paint as part of her therapy. She
painted flowers, landscapes and cityscapes, and made several series of paper
dolls for her daughter.
Her six gouaches (opaque watercolors) illustrating chapters
in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and her
fairy tale and nursery rhyme series, all from the 1940s, are considered
her best work.
Fitzgerald used explosive color and dramatic compositions
to illustrate the complexity of double meanings, satire, morals, and absurdities
found in the literary texts. Because much of her art was done during concentrated
periods while she was in and out of mental institutions, there is no complete
record of her works. Some were lost and others were destroyed in the 1948
fire that took Fitzgerald's life at a Highland, N.C. mental hospital.
A catalogue illustrating works in the exhibition will be
available. It features an introduction by Heidi Kunz Bullock, F. Scott Fitzgerald
scholar and R-MWC faculty member, and an essay by Ellen Schall Agnew, Interin
Director, Maier Museum of Art.
Above: The Lobster Quadrille by Arlyn Firkins Bruccoli
'55.
rev. 11/22/10
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The Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon
Woman's College has brought together five of the six watercolors from Zelda
Fitzgerald's Alice in Wonderland series for a special exhibition that runs
Oct. 22-Dec. 23, 1998. The exhibit, which includes eight of her other paintings,
which depict children's fairy tales and nursery rhymes, is called "Zelda
Fitzgerald: Alice in Wonderland and Other Fairy Tales." The exhibition
was inspired by a 1997 gift to the Maier of Zelda's painting "The Lobster
Quadrille" by Arlyn Firkins Bruccoli '55.