Aviles Street with Wavy Tree, 1995

Emmett Fritz discovered the city of St. Augustine in the 1950's making its landscape and scenes of everyday life his primary subjects. This plein air painting depicts the infamous St. George Street in early days before the hordes of tourists. The pastel palette presents a cool morning with balconies and flower pots overflowing with the colors of the season. Ancient trees reflected in the spring shower puddles on the pavement add timeless charm to this historic byway. The vintage wood frame recaptures the colors within adding the final "brushstroke" to the work. Fritz adopted and perfected an impressionistic, painterly style that enabled him to capture the light and movement reflected in his artwork through his distinctive application of impasto and vigorous brushstroke.
The painter and illustrator professionally known as Emmett John Fritz (born John Emmett Fritz) was born on October 13, 1917 in Kansas City, Missouri. He studied art at Pratt Institute in New York graduating in 1937. Pratt Institute is a higher-learning graduate institution built with a focus on the fine arts, engineering, and architecture. Fritz also worked with Norman Rockwell for a brief period, becoming a known magazine and newspaper cartoonist for a comic strip called Roxie West, as well as an illustrator, before a move to Florida in 1950. In Florida, Fritz discovered the city of St. Augustine. He also became committed to serious easel painting and watercolor at this time. His primary subjects were the St. Augustine landscape, capturing scenes of everyday life in the quaint walled city, and the Spanish influenced architecture of the city. Although he had an indoor studio on St. George Street, Fritz preferred painting outside on city sidewalks and in a swift manner to capture the great vivacity of the bustling city.