"Look… to see, to remember, to enjoy"
Images of artists are associated with a person dressed in a smock standing in front of an easel and wearing a Tam or a Tammy hat . A Tam O'Shanter is a Scottish bonnet named from a poem written by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1790.
Joseph C. Fitzpatrick (1909-!994) art supervisor for the Pittsburgh Public Schools for 33 years taught gifted students at the Carnegie Institute. Andy Worhol who went to Schenley High School, studied art under Joseph Fitzpatrick in the Carnegie Institute's Tam O’Shanter Art Classes. Some other artists from the class alumni are Raymond Saunders, Philip Pearlstein and Mel Bochner.
"Clustered in the neighborhood of Oakland in the cultural center of Pittsburgh are the Universities of Pitt and Mellon. Forbes Field was once there, and the hugh old museum housing the Carnegie Music Hall, Carnegie Museum of Natural History and Carnegie Museum of Art. The massive stairs that you see in the movie Flashdance seem to run all of the way down the block in front of the Museum . We used to dream of being locked in the museum all night, after class Sharon Grossman, other art students and I would roam the exhibit halls, walk under giant dinosaur skeletons and eat in the cafeteria. As good as I was, I was never one of the ten best students that Fitzpatrick, as we called him, would choose each week to work on the stage behind him as he lectured. We started each class working on two thumbnail sketches in the corner of our paper and copied the alphabet between them, until everyone arrived and was seated. During the lectures we would work out our drawings on the paper. When the class was over we would hand the paper in, hoping to be one of the ten chosen to have our name called out in front of everyone in the hall and line up on the stage to work". -fairyplain, art student
“Mr. Fitzpatrick always walked to the museum, and you’d see him striding up Forbes Avenue towards the class, always impeccably dressed—elegant suits, a white shirt and tie, and snow-white hair. He’d slip in the back of the museum, and next time you saw him he’d be on stage. He was a celebrity.” -Beth Braughler, art student
A note of interest,
Judy Garland's mother was also a Fitzpatrick. Patrick Fitzpatrick emigrated to America in the
1770s from Smithtown, County Meath, Ireland.
The New York Times published Joseph C. Fitzpatrick's Obituary, May 01, 1994 .