An Unknown Artist Gets Known: Part Two by Dave Jaffe

        Part Two of 'An Unknown Artist Gets Known'


          George Fertig's paintings usually fall into one of three types.
 First came conventional paintings of trees growing by rivers or seas. Then Fertig painted many pictures of fruits, either just one fruit or two .  Last but not least, Fertig painted pictures that were spiritual in intent. These paintings were influenced by the work of the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. In these works, big and small moons stand out against dark skies and usually loom over plants that come out of the sea.
     "George was now known among his friends and fellow artists as the 'Moon Man'," writes Mona Fertig. "He painted huge primordial images that filled the walls in our damp basement suite in Kitsilano."
     By the late 1950's George Fertig was now a married man with a wife and two daughters. He worked in blue collar jobs and was a left leaning progressive. Later he stopped working to concentrate on his art. He spent most of his time painting pictures but also branched out into pottery.
     He, his wife Eva Luxa, and their two daughters spent many years in poverty. Fertig's art was often ignored by the Vancouver art establishment. Artists like Jack Shadbolt, Takao Tanabe, Roy Kiyooka, B.C. Binning and others thrived because they were connected to the
 Vancouver Art Gallery and the Vancouver School of Art. They also nearly all painted in an abstract style. Fertig was mostly self taught. He never taught at the Vancouver School of Art or could count on getting his pictures shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
      Mona Fertig touches on this point but it needs to be connected to the wider world of the fine arts. In the late 1940's, a Cold War erupted between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. As Serge Guilbault points out in his book 'How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art', the Central Intelligence Agency backed the art called 'Abstract Expressionism'.
      Abstract painters like Jackson Pollock, Wilhelm de Kooning and Franz Kline were lauded as great painters - which they were. Yet they followed or founded the school of art called Abstract Expressionism. Other types of art, like George Fertig's, were shut out of the art world. As part of this world wide trend, the Vancouver Art Gallery changed into an exclusive organization that welcomed artists like Jack Shadbolt and his friends who painted in an abstract style. Shadbolt in the late 1940's quickly switched from painting realistic works to becoming an abstract painter. Others followed suit. Those that did not, like George Fertig were left out in the cold.
     Fertig had no chance to get shown widely as he was confronting powerful forces, that operated not only in Vancouver, but around the western world.
      Professor Peter Such says in his introduction to Mona Fertig's book, "It takes tremendous courage to plumb the depths of mystical life." George Fertig did this and thanks are due to his daughter Mona. She has finally lifted the veil of obscurity that lay over her dad's life until now.