This remembrance from President Ravi Rajan was sent to the entire CalArts' community—faculty, staff, students, and alumni—on the recent passing of CalArts' second president Robert "Bob" Fitzpatrick.
Dear CalArtians,
Yesterday (Sept. 30) the world lost a fierce champion of artists and of the critical role arts play in society; an unabashed optimist who consistently demanded—and achieved—a degree of trust and independence that enabled him to create space for the arts on a level we seldom see. Robert (Bob) Fitzpatrick—CalArts’ second president from 1975 to 1987—passed away peacefully while sleeping. He was 84.
His time with us leaves a legacy that not only helped shape CalArts as we know it, but also the cultural landscape of cities including Los Angeles, Paris, New York, Chicago, and beyond.
The last time Bob was on campus, at CalArts’ 50th anniversary celebration last year, he talked about receiving a piece of advice within hours of arriving at CalArts to assume the presidency.
“Trust artists,” he was told. “Let them fail intelligently, and learn, and take risks. Give them the courage to try and to fail.”
He told me that piece of advice—to trust artists, and to allow them to take risks, try, and fail without fear—changed his entire approach to his CalArts presidency, and his life after. It also set the tone for CalArts from that point forward.
The four-year-old Institute was on the brink of financial collapse, a grand experiment that was having a tough time, in the changing demographics and mores of the 1970s, trying to maintain its utopian vision of the role of artists amid the realities of a society working through profound social and political upheaval. Bob was a confident but inexperienced leader who had taken to wearing a T-shirt that read, “I’m the Dean” in his previous role as Dean of Students at Johns Hopkins, where he was often mistaken for a student himself.
He quickly convinced CalArts’ Board to “trust the artists,” take a risk, and give millions more in funding, pulling the fledgling school back from the edge of bankruptcy and providing the foundation it needed to grow out of insolvency. During his tenure, CalArts’ legendary Character Animation and Jazz programs were founded—again, moves that were not wholly popular with faculty on campus, and not without risk. By the end of his tenure, the school had solidified its reputation for generative experimentation, audacious ideas, and cultivating a space for artists above the art.
Toward the end of his time at CalArts, Bob (after discussions with Disney board members and executives Roy E. Disney, Frank Wells, Michael Eisner, and others) accepted the offer from Olympic Organizing Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth to create a parallel global arts program with the 1984 Olympics—which became the LA Olympic Arts Festival (Chief of Staff John Orders kept things on campus afloat).
The festival featured some 400 experimental and interdisciplinary performances from around the globe, many being seen outside of their home countries for the first time. Among them were many artists in Los Angeles (including some CalArts students, faculty, and alumni), marking an important celebration of the host city. The 1984 festival is remembered today as a landmark moment in the history of the city, introducing LA to international arts communities—in many cases via CalArts. Los Angeles’ present-day global reputation in multiple arts genres was propelled by the ’84 festival—a moment for the world to see Los Angeles, and itself, through the arts and culture.
In 1987, Fitzpatrick created a second LA Arts Festival, but at the same time, Disney executives lured him away from CalArts and Los Angeles to Paris (fluent in French, he’d been a professor of French literature at Johns Hopkins) to oversee the building and opening of the new EuroDisney theme park. His cultural understanding of France and his track record of managing global projects with artists were key to his being chosen for the role.
After EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris) was opened, Bob moved to New York to serve as Dean of Columbia University’s School of the Arts; and two years hence moved to Chicago to take the post of CEO and Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago. After a decade in the Windy City, he returned to New York and began consulting on projects, including starting a New York location of London-based and Christie’s-owned Haunch of Venison gallery.
We were fortunate to welcome Bob back to campus in 2023 for our 50th anniversary celebration, where he accepted the Honorary Alumni Award from CalArts’ Alumni Council, which bestowed the award to him as “a non-alum whose deeds and actions had a profound impact on the CalArts experience for students and alums.”
While on campus he also delighted us with his tales of CalArts’ storied past: he participated in a lively conversation with alum and dear friend to CalArts Carey Lovelace (Music BFA 75) and me, which you may enjoy watching.
After I was named President in December of 2016, Bob was one of the first people to contact me—he looked me up on social media, mentioned he was in New York, and we scheduled a time to meet. From that moment on I was regaled by the stories: of CalArts and of Bob’s amazing journey. What emerged was the portrait of a man fully open to life and all its possibilities.
In learning about Bob’s life, he taught me how to be me. Only someone truly secure in themselves can do that.
Like many, I’m saddened by the loss of such an inspiring leader and friend. Still, I find comfort in thinking about Bob’s contributions to CalArts, the arts, and the world. He trusted artists, and it served us—and the world—very well.
Please join me in holding his loved ones in your thoughts, especially his wife Sylvie and his children Joel, Michael, and Claire. We will work with them to plan a memorial for sometime in the future, and we will be sure to share that information with you as it comes into focus.
Sincerely,
Ravi S. Rajan
President
Photo: CalArts Archives