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Alice Zoë Elizabeth (“Bessie”) Boehm was born in Toronto in 1907. After her marriage in the late 1930s to A.H. Fitzgerald, she was known as Bessie Fitzgerald. Always a creative entrepreneur and promoter of the arts, she moved to Ste. Anne de Bellevue near Montreal in the mid 1940s and started a fine handicrafts shop called "The Wagon Wheel." Around 1950 she moved to Victoria and opened a similar shop called "The Quest" and became an active promoter of west coast First Nations art. Notably, she offered a significant outlet for the early work of her friend Bill Reid and other artists in the 50s and 60s. She later opened branches of The Quest in Vancouver and then in Banff, where she lived until her death in 1988. On her death she bequeathed her collection of art to MOA and other museums.

Born: 1907
Died: 1988