Fontaine was awarded the Winchester Wirt Traveling Fellowship the same year, but due to wartime exigencies[citation needed], chose instead to study and paint in the Caribbean.
Virginia Fontaine was trained as a painter at Yale but did not graduate, and she became a major force in Paul's subsequent creative activities.
After this year abroad, the Fontaines returned to the States where they built a studio in Worcester called Rocky Tor.
This young man, an outstanding product of the Worcester Art Museum School as well as of Yale, has expressly stated...that he had no intention of reproducing photographically the history of his progress up the Italian peninsula.
"[citation needed] The show consisted of twenty watercolors, which constitute the only visual documentation of this period (he had completed at least one hundred works while in Tortola).
After the war's end, Fontaine began working for the Historical Division as a cartographer in Paris, but a change in position to graphics director found him relocating to Frankfurt, to be joined by Virginia and their young daughter Carol in the winter of 1946.
His meeting of gallerist Lucia Stern in Boston was a turning point, as was an exhibition in Wiesbaden of the paintings of German abstractionists like Willi Baumeister, Otto Ritschl, Erich Heckel, Karlheinz Schmidt-Rotluff and Emile Nolde in 1949.
Fontaine was, by the mid-1950s, living in Darmstadt, where he also had contact with composers of new music (Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel would be among these) and practitioners of modern dance and other arts.
Leaving Darmstadt and Europe, writer Robert d'Hooge noted the following in Schlosskeller: "Since he has discovered his problems and his way of translating and expressing those in his paintings, Fontaine has gone without hesitation, his own way.
Now the evolution has arrived at the Stadium of Wisdom, where the sonorous double-sound of two colors creates complete harmony in the smallest space.
After the death of his wife Virginia, Paul Fontaine moved to Austin, Texas in 1992 in order to be close to his daughters.
Expatriating to Europe could have improved his showing chances, and it did to a degree – exhibiting at Amsterdam's Stedelijk and the Neue Sezession in Darmstadt certainly counts toward a presence on the continental art scene.
But even as he befriended and/or showed with artists like Baumeister, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Hans Hartung, and Bauhaus weaver and painter Ida Kerkovius, Fontaine did not quite ascend in notoriety while in Europe.
Critic Egon Vietta was to write a monograph on Fontaine's work, but that plan was cut short by his untimely death.
1936 Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C. USA 1940 Museum of Modern Art, New York USA 1941 October San Juan, Puerto Rico 1941 November Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 39th Annual Philadelphia Water color and print exhibition 1941 December Jordan Marsh Gallery, Worcester, MA.
USA 1945 June Indiana State University Museum, USA 1945 October Milwaukee Art institute, WI, USA 1948 May Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Frankfurt, West Germany 1948 June Wuppertal Barmen Museum, Westfalia, Germany 1949 February Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, Germany 1949 July Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Museum of Modern Art, Paris France 1950 January Margaret Brown Gallery, Boston MA.
1951 July Palace Hotel, St. Moritz, Switzerland 1951 September Galerie Chichio Haller, Zurich Switzerland 1952 March Zimmer Galerie Franck, Frankfurt/M, Germany 1952 October Pittsburg Carnegie International USA 1953 February Frankfurter Kunstkabinett (Paul Fontaine and Alexander Calder) 1953 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Indian Institute of Culture New Deli, India, Jaipur House Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Museau de Arte Moderna Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Edificio Dante 1956 February East & West Gallery, San Francisco CA.
1985 October Galeria Municipal Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 1985 October Centro de Arte Moderno, Gaadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 1986 June Galeria Alejandro Gallo, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 1986 December Worthington Gallery Chicago IL, USA 1987 December Worthington Gallery Chicago IL, USA 1989 January Worthington Gallery Chicago III, USA 1990 February Centro Arte Moderno Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 1991 June Worthington Gallery Chicago IL USA.
1992 August Galeria Alejandro Gallo Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico 1995 Sol de Rio Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, USA Fontaine Archive In chronological order: Tooker, Helen V. "Fontaines Win Beauty Contest, Paint Tortola—Paul and Virginia Fontaine, On Painting Thursday,9 October 1941, p.2 Sisson, Frederick R. "Providence Critic looks at City Exhibit", Worcester Daily Telegram, Thursday, 7 May 1942, p. 8 Creighton, Robert, "Impressions of a Worcester Combat Artist"MilwaukeeSentinel, Oct 1945 "Paintings by Combat Artist, Man and Wife Team Will be Exhibited"The Kalamazoo Gazette, 3 Feb.1946, p.13 "Soldier's brush has real spirit"Worcester Evening Gazette, Monday 11 March 1946 Merkel, Walter"Fontaine's novel art exhibited at Fitchburg" Worcester Telegram, 13 March 1946 "Two Man Show at Art Center has widely Different Style Appeal", The Fitchburg Sentinel, March 1946 D.A.
"Water Colors of a Soldier" Christian Science Monitor, 19 March 1946 "____" Frankfurter Rundschau, 1949, p. 5–(review of exhibit, possibly Amerika Haus, January 1949, or Kunstkabinett, Feb 1949 Lutzeier, Paul "Modern German Art—Berlin leads the way", Information Bulletin:Monthly Magazine of the US HICOG, August 1949, no.
"Innenbild—Zur Austellung Paul E. Fontaine in der Stadtbücherei"Darmstädter Echo, Freitag 10 Sept, 1954 Wentinck, CH"Vijf Abstracte Schilders, Amerikanen in Stedelijk Museum" Elseviers Weekblad, Zaterdag 29 Januari, 1955, p. 21 Frankenstein, Alfred, "Some Abstract Views of the Night Scene" San Francisco Chronicle, 4 March 1956, p. 25 M.F.
236, 8 December 1961 "Erholungshaus" Neue Rhein Zeitung, nr.274 v.24, 24 November 1961 "Kulturpfege geht eigene Wege:kulturabteilung Bayer aröffnet Austellung "Organon 61" im Erholungshaus" Neue Rhein Zeitung, Nr.274, 24 November 1961 Becker, Dr. Walter "Fünf Künstler im Erholungshaus—Bis 17 Dezember:maler und Bilhauer unter dem Titel "Organon 61" Kölnische Rundschau nr.
"Neue Mitglieder der Sezession", Darmstädter Echo, 28 April 1964, p. 4 Maass, Max Peter, "Paul E. Fontaine verläst Darmstadt—Abschiedsaustellung in der Schlosskeller Galerie" Darmstädter Tagsblad, Thursday 19 February 1970 D'Hooghe, Robert "Paul Fontaine im Schlosskeller" Darmstädter Echo, 19 February 1970 Sabais, H.W., Magistrat der Stadt Darmstadt, "Farewell letter" dated 27 May 1970 Ridge, George "Guadalajara Painter tells which end is up" Tucson Daily Citizen, Saturday 2 September 1972 .