John Kelly Fitzpatrick

[1][5] He was inspired by French painters like Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), and Henri Matisse (1869–1954).

[2] Together with a group of artists known as the Morningview Painters, Fitzpatrick founded the Alabama Art League in the late 1920s.

[1][6] In 1938 and 1939, he was commissioned by the federal government as part of the Public Works of Art Project to produce paintings, including murals inside the newly constructed post offices in the towns of Ozark, Alabama titled Early Industry of Dale County and in Phenix City, Alabama titled Cotton.

[1] From 1937, they met at Poka Hutchi ("gathering of picture writers" in Creek Indian parlance), a small cabin on Lake Jordan.

[1][2] Later, Frank W. Applebee, the Chair of the School of Art and Architecture at Auburn University and a painter, joined the colony, as did Genevieve Southerland, Anne Wilson Goldthwaite and Lamar Dodd (1909-1996).