Biography

After studying Medicine at the University of Melbourne between 1910-14, Samuel Fitzpatrick enlisted in the Australian Infantry Force. He was commissioned Captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps and served in Egypt at Heliopolis, on the Gallipoli peninsula, and in France at Pozières, where he was awarded the Military Cross. In 1919, when a resident at The Royal Free Hospital, London, he married his Australian fiancée, Moree Refshauge. In 1920 he became Medical Superintendent to Hamilton Hospital and Benevolent Asylum and later gained world wide recognition as a hydatid expert. Fitzpatrick was a long serving Rotarian (1937-91), Presbyterian Church Elder and Trustee of the Hamilton Art Gallery. He received an MBE and CBE in 1977.

Many of Samuel Fitzpatrick’s artworks made during the First World War are in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The vase of late spring flowers here, painted on the artist’s 85th birthday, points to this extraordinary man’s love of beauty and optimistic attitude to life.