Died 16 November 2015 | ||
 | ||
Arthur "Art" M. Fitzpatrick (November 24, 1919 – November 16, 2015, also known as "Fitz") was an American art director best known for his automotive art and advertising illustrations. Arguably, his most notable work was on the Pontiac "wide-track" campaign between 1959 and 1972 while working with Van Kaufman. Fitzpatrick had several careers over eight decades, including automobile designing, art director and stamp designer. Towards the end of his career, he designed two series of automobile stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, released in 2005 and 2008.
Contents
Early years
In 1936, Fitzpatrick enrolled at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts (now the College for Creative Studies). At that time, he was 18 years old and worked at Chrysler at night to pay his way. John Tjaarda, the head stylist at the Briggs Body Company, hired him as an apprentice designer, where he worked on various projects for Chrysler, Packard and Lincoln. Fitzpatrick is credited with designing the 1940 Packard 180 sedan.
He moved to California with his parents in 1938 and took a job with Howard "Dutch" Darrin, where Fitzpatrick developed designs for Darrin-modified Packards.
Fitzpatrick served in the Naval Aviation Training and the Naval Office of Research and Invention during World War II, then landed a contract to illustrate Mercury's postwar ads before he left the Navy. After World War II, Mercury signed Fitzpatrick to create images for its advertising. About that time, he began working with Van Kaufman, a former Disney animator whose specialty was drawing people and places.
That lasted until 1953, when General Motors Buick division hired him and his new partner Kaufman as the division's advertising artists, with Fitzpatrick is illustrating the cars and Kaufman painting the backgrounds of their distinctive artwork. They moved to Pontiac in 1959 to produce the artwork for the Pontiac "wide-track" campaign running to 1972, the longest and arguably the most successful ad campaign in American automobile industry history. In 1972 they moved to Opel producing advertising artwork for a few years.
Later years
Fitzpatrick continued to produce signed and numbered prints and artist proofs of his work, eventually adapting to digital illustration techniques. He consulted with Pixar Animation Studios on the development of feature movie Cars.
Fitzpatrick continued to lecture widely and appeared at venues such as the Center For Creative Studies and the Gilmore Car Museum in Michigan. He gave his last presentation at the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo, California in October 2015.
Fitzpatrick drew two series of top-selling commemorative stamps for the U.S. Postal Service titled "America on the Move" which were released in 2005 and 2008. The first series celebrated 1950s sporty cars, such as the Chevrolet Corvette, Ford Thunderbird and Kaiser Darrin. The second set, "tail fins and chrome," featured such cars as the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, Chrysler 300C and Lincoln Premiere.
Personal life
Fitzpatrick was married twice and had one daughter.
Art Fitzpatrick died at 96 years on November 16, 2015 in Carlsbad, California after a short illness.
Awards and honors
Fitzpatrick was the recipient of numerous automotive and advertising industry awards and honors.
Fitzpatrick's greatest achievement was receiving the first national Andy Award (the advertising industry's equivalent of the Oscar) in 1964 by the Advertising Club of New York City.
In 2012, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he had been a distinguished guest lecturer since 1965. Fitzpatrick was an honorary member of the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) and the Automotive Fine Art Society (AFAS). The AFAS has an award named in his honor that is given annually at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.