Russell FitzGerald, Carnival at New Hope or the Agony to Be Loved, 1961 (BG242, view 3, 2024). Photo: Rachel Topham Photography
Artwork
Carnival at New Hope or the Agony to Be Loved
- Artist/Creator
- Russell FitzGerald (Artist)
- Date
- 1961
- ID #
- BG242
Physical Description
- Medium
- oil
- Support
- masonite
- Dimensions
- 122 cm 167.5 cm 4 cm (Object)
- Object Description
- The ecstatic spectacle titled Carnival at New Hope or the Agony to Be Loved was painted in 1961 after FitzGerald left San Francisco and before he eloped with Dora Dull and her young twin daughters for New York City in 1963. It was completed in his Nana’s home in Doylestown, PA, which epitomized the white American comfort and complacency he rejected in favour of a life of poverty and infamy. New Hope, PA, was a pretty, historic town near where his father’s family had homesteaded. He describes the canvas in his journal: “On the lefthand panel 3 boys play at being muses. The negro carries the box marked 13. All boxes must be shown & seen empty except it. In the centre of the centre panel a ceremony blocks the midway. Everybody is assembling the god, the twelve parts are in place or about to be. Stage front the androgynous family demon is ripping the youngest son in half while the mercy pelican peck[s] his heart. The blood feeds her young. His hands enter the canal, under its smooth surface Ray Charles blindly plays the piano. On the right hand panel 3 hags dance under an umbrella […] nothing must be for pretty. All for true.” FitzGerald was extremely proud of his “masterpiece,” which finds a historical touchstone in James Ensor’s epic allegory Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889.
-Jon Davies, 2024
History
- Collection
- Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Permanent Collection
- Credit Line
- Gift of Dora FitzGerald, 1992
- Related Exhibitions
- That Directionless Light of the Future: Rediscovering Russell FitzGerald
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