Instead he explored his surroundings, delving deeply into the forces he felt animated and united nature in order to make "the picture a living thing".

[4] His mother's family had left Devonshire for Canada,[3] eventually settling on a farm in the Pembina Hills near Snowflake, Manitoba.

[4] As a boy, FitzGerald spent the summer vacation months on his grandmother's farm where he and his older brother were free to explore the woods and prairies.

[3] A teacher introduced him to the masterworks through Perry Picture[5] reproductions, and he also took pleasure in drawing exercises from popular art coursebooks.

He found it was not how he wanted to spend his life, sayingAfter leaving school I worked in a wholesale drug office and finding the job not quite satisfying I felt the first real urge to draw so I got some drawing paper, a pencil and eraser and started work.

One of the first efforts, out of doors, was the drawing of a large elm tree and I remember a friend and I making great preparations and walking a long distance to find a subject that appealed to us.

In 1915, FitzGerald began applying Impressionist concepts to his work, adopting broken dabs of colour to suggest form, depth and the intense atmospheric light typical of the prairies.

He was particularly struck by the works of Paul Cézanne, which had just been donated to the Museum of Modern Art in the Havemeyer bequest.

Doc Snyder, in particular "represents two winters, including two full weeks each Christmas vacation as well as all weekends."

For FitzGerald, the formal relationships between lines, colours, and shapes were more important to the life of the paintings than subject matter.

fills the artist's mind, and to do this requires time for active work and quiet thought [10]In 1947, FitzGerald took a leave of absence from his responsibilities as director at the Winnipeg School of Art.

With time to concentrate on his artwork, the fifty‒seven‒year‒old painted some of the masterpieces of his career such as The Little Plant (1947, McMichael Canadian Art Collection).

In 2003, the Royal Canadian Mint produced a gold coin based on FitzGerald's 1929 work Houses.