The Castine Historical Society is sponsoring a special talk by Stephen Fitz-Gerald entitled “Treasures from Clark Fitz-Gerald’s Sketchbooks.” The lecture will take place Sunday, August 6, at 4:30 PM at Emerson Hall on Court Street in Castine.  The event is free and open to the public.

For a sculptor, the sketchbook is the way visual ideas are fleshed out and coalesced in their manifestation. The Castine artist Clark Fitz-Gerald (1917-2004) created many works in his long and successful career.  His public monolithic commissions embellish cities, universities, and cathedrals, along the East Coast, in the Midwest, and as far away as Coventry Cathedral in England, while his more personal works are cherished by friends and collectors alike.

Recently Fitz-Gerald’s family gave a substantial archive of the artist’s papers to the Castine Historical Society for preservation in the Society’s fireproof, temperature and humidity-controlled facility on the Town Common.  The archive includes photographs, correspondence, publications, cartoons, and sixty-five sketchbooks, the latter illustrating how his initial ideas translated to his finished works. The talk will be a digital sampling of these visual treasures with commentary by his son, Stephen, who is also an artist.

The Castine Historical Society, located in the Abbott School and Samuel P. Grindle House on the town common, is a 501(c)3 organization that serves as a window into Castine’s extraordinary past.