High above a background of green Venetian water, six masked men crouch low on a tiled roof, conferring with each other, their gestures playful These six, caught in the moments before they pounce into their next prank, are the subject of a large painting, Pulchinelli on the Roof, # 2, that hung for years in the library of Menlo-Atherton High School.
High school students rarely get to delve beneath the professional façade of their teachers. Joseph Fuchs, however, allowed students a glimpse into the man behind the English teacher through this painting (now hanging in a conference room at the high school). Nancy Barnby, who was chair of the English Department during Fuchs career, says that although Fuchs “never lacked for a following of kids, he was a private man,” and his painting “opened up a side of Joseph that was interesting to students and the faculty.”
Now Fuchs’ work will be on display Dec. 3-11 at the Florence Biennale, an exhibition of international, contemporary artwork. In the three years since his retirement, Fuchs has finally had the time to focus on his painting.
The invitation to the Biennale is the culmination of a lifelong pursuit of art. Fuchs began painting in childhood and eventually graduated with an art degree from San Jose State in 1965. Following his graduation, Fuchs enlisted in the Army. He spent a cold, gloomy year in Korea, before transferring to Vietnam, where he was a medic. On leave after Vietnam, he returned to Los Altos, his hometown, where he met Jane Garibaldi. They spent his two week leave in a whirlwind courtship and when he returned from leave, they were engaged. They married in 1968, after his discharge.
Following his service, Fuchs tried his hand at several different jobs before deciding to try teaching. His first year, he taught art at Woodside High School and was prepared to return for a second year, but the district transferred him to Menlo Atherton High School as an English teacher.
Lynsey Hemstreet, an ex-student of his, recalls him as an “exacting teacher, who had his field down to a science.” The upper level teachers, including Barnby, could “count on his kids coming out strong and knowing how to write.”
“There was a certain cache to being in Mr. Fuchs’ class,” Hemstreet says, “you could always count on interesting discussions,” because he added artwork and film and creative writing assignments to an otherwise full schedule of classic novels and poetry, essays and vocabulary.
Liane Strub, the current English Department Chair, says that he wasn’t just a literature teacher, but that he “really brought an appreciation for all the arts into the classroom.”
Early in his teaching career, Fuchs encountered what would become his obsession: Pulchinella. A character in the Commedia dell’Arte (16th Century Venetian street theater), Pulcinella is one of several established characters, recognized by his flowing white garments, tall hat and beak-like nose. This trickster is the only character who may never remove his mask.
Fuchs first encountered the clown through the Venetian painter, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s, study of pulcinelli, “Divertimenti,” and was immediately enchanted by the series of playful drawings.
“I thought, well, my god, this is real cheerful! I like to joke, this guy likes to joke too!” Fuchs says of the encounter. “This is just great: Somebody in painting who has got a sense of humor.”
Fuchs now paints exclusively pulchinelli situated in the Venetian cityscape. Several of his paintings revolve heavily around a joke, but he has used the paradoxical nature of the clown’s mask to push the character beyond its traditional role of prankster. The mask simultaneously exposes and suppresses individuality and Fuchs used this to situate the singular figure in a variety of ways.
Fuchs has experienced both sides of the mask for himself. During his three years of military service, Fuchs successfully played the unimportant everyman. “The only reason I got through the military without getting killed was because I was nondescript,” he explains, “I didn’t come out of hiding until I came out of the service.” The success of any military unit depends on its strength as a whole, not on the individual. Fuchs essentially had to mask his individuality to blend into his unit.
Years later, during one Venetian Carnivale, with his wife, Fuchs romped through Venice, dressed, of course, as Pulchinella. “We got going in [Saint Mark’s] square, because we had the costumes on,” he says of the dancing, joking and playing that night. , Jane Fuchs, says “the Pulchinella came out in him” that night.
Strub appreciates what “Fuchs taught us all as teachers: Don’t be limited” by your genre or by what you bring into the classroom. From his teaching to his painting, Fuchs has pushed accepted boundaries effectively opening himself up to interpretation.
Experience Joseph Fuch’s Venice at:
Voshan Gallery
374 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
650-321-8108
M-Th 11am – 7pm
F – S 11am – 9pm
Sun Noon – 6pm
Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea
Fortezza da Basso, Florence, Italy
December 3-11, 2005
www.florencebiennale.org
Fuchs’ own website:
www.artworkofvenice.com
Copyright © 2008 Michelle Wallace All Rights Reserved