Joe Fontaine, Left Courtroom To Become Noted Painter, 74

[DGH]

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Joe Fontaine, a prolific artist who gave up his law career to craft
Impressionist paintings of city scenes, died Tuesday, January 13,
2004, from complications of bone cancer at a hospice in Naples,
Florida, at the age of 74.

Whether he was painting under the shade of his trademark straw hat on
Boston [Massachusetts] Common or in one of his three studios to the
sounds of opera, Joe Fontaine had a knack for creating pictures that
spoke to him and, as it turned out, many others.

For three decades, Mr. Fontaine painted while working as a Boston tax
attorney. The father of five didn't suspect that he could make a
living as an artist.

"He never knew he could sell art the way he ended up selling it," said
his daughter, Carolyn of Westwood, Massachusetts. "I can't tell you my
father was humble -- he was pretty proud -- but I think he was
surprised that there were as many people that liked his art as there
were."

Eventually, his artistic nature overcame his practical one.

"I painted weekends, nights, vacations for years until the early
1970s, when I decided to make the transition," Mr. Fontaine told The
Providence Journal in an article published in June. "I have to paint
the kind of pictures I enjoy looking at myself."

Long's Jewelers of Burlington continues to feature Mr. Fontaine's
depictions of Boston on giftware, including glasses, mirrors, clocks,
and crystal.

"We've sold tens of thousands of his images," said Bob Rottenberg,
president of Long's. Mr. Fontaine held annual signing events in Long's
shops in Burlington and downtown Boston.

"They made purchases that night that they never even knew they were
going to when they walked in the door," said Elisa Gomez Pennimpede, a
gift buyer for Long's. Mr. Fontaine held his final signing event in
November.

Terry Vose, co-owner of Vose Galleries on Tremont Street, knew Mr.
Fontaine for 33 years.

"People were looking for that type of subject matter," Vose said. "He
just found a very good niche, and to heck with being a lawyer."

He painted Newbury Street and Boston Common, but the swanboats were
Mr. Fontaine's most successful subjects.

"We've always had a very strong following for his swanboat in the
Public Garden," Pennimpede said. "Anything that we've ever used that
image on has always been very, very popular."

Perhaps Mr. Fontaine's most widely seen work was a painting created to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Boston Marathon. He was
commissioned in 1996 by the Boston Athletic Association to design a
lithograph that was to be printed on a line of souvenirs.

Mr. Fontaine was born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. When he was
10, he painted Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on the walls of his
parents' basement. "They were absolutely better than the originals,"
Carolyn Fontaine said. "It was like a magical kingdom."

After graduating from Tufts College in 1951, where he studied English
and art history, he entered the Navy, serving as a communications
officer, decoding top-secret documents.

For three of his 4 1/2 years in the service, he was stationed on an
aircraft carrier in Naples. He was discharged in 1958 and would later
return to paint Venetian canals and other Italian landscapes. Mr.
Fontaine loved things Italian, from food to opera to his wife of 51
years, Rose Brigada.

As a painter, Mr. Fontaine would start a piece by what he called
"boxing in," sketching the design he wished to achieve. Then he would
begin painting while opera music played.

"He concentrated deeply when he was painting, and it was great to
watch him, backwards and forwards, a thousand steps each day," said
his son, Stephen of Sydney.

"But he was not an ambler. He moved," Carolyn Fontaine said. "Truth be
told, he wasn't the most patient person on earth."

The pace he kept helped him produce dozens of paintings in a short
period of time. "He seemed to be very inspired; it didn't take him a
year. He wasn't Vermeer," Carolyn Fontaine said.

"From your childhood Snow White murals. . . to the Boston Marathon
poster, your work has inspired me to see art as tangible and part of
what it means to love life," Mr. Fontaine's niece Patricia Fontaine
wrote to her uncle earlier this month.