Reilly Fitzgerald

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Zane Grey Fishing at Grandy's Brook, Reilly Fitzgerald

While researching Zane Grey on the Rock, there were dozens of Newfoundlanders who helped identify the locations of many images.  One man, Reilly Fitzgerald, volunteered to help in another way.  He asked for permission to create a new painting based on one of the images.  This wonderful piece of original art is the result. Below is the photograph that inspired Reilly's painting.  One of the interesting elements of both works is that Grey is wearing a net to protect his face from the flies on Grandy's Brook at the time.

Reilly's Facebook page tells his inspiring story. "Born in St. John’s in 1967, Reilly Fitzgerald was raised in Wabush, Labrador West, & then Spaniard’s Bay, NL. Reilly has a congenital defect known as an AV fistula malformation, which affects his use of his right hand & arm. Two things that have accompanied Reilly on his life journey are pain, & his art. His childhood included eleven surgeries on his hand & arm by the time he turned fourteen. The right-hand dominant Fitzgerald became ambidextrous & left-dominant as he continued to develop his artistic skills. He eventually studied Art & Art History formally as a part of achieving his B.A. (1998) & B.Ed. (1999) at Memorial University, & received a diploma with highest honours in Art from International Correspondence Schools (1986) while still attending high school. He later taught private art lessons & volunteered in local schools throughout Conception Bay, NL, worked as a plasterer & painter, & taught high school, ultimately leading him to his current home in Clarenville. Reilly continues to live with various sources of chronic pain, & creates his art from his home in Clarenville, where he lives with his high-school sweetheart & wife, Julie & family." Reilly told us that he shares two things with Zane Grey: as an English teacher he enjoys the written word, telling stories, and literature, and even more he shares a lifelong love of nature and especially the challenge of fishing and trouting. A selection of Reilly's art is available online through his daughter's business, Eagle Photo Studio.
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Zane Grey fishing on Grandy's Brook, NL (1929)

Photo of Reilly Fitgerald taken by his daughter Kayleigh.  The photo is of Denny's Pond with an insert of his painting of Denny's Pond used early in this presentation.

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Reilly Fitzgerald