In retirement, Kingsbrook Jewish Lab worker Fritz Joseph is devoted full time to art.
Retiree Fritz Joseph, displays some of his artwork at his Brooklyn home.
In January, after 50 years at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, Clinical Laboratory Scientist Fritz Joseph hung up his lab coat for the last time. At retirement age and with Kingsbrook’s lab downsizing, Joseph decided to dedicate his life full-time to art. (See story about Kingsbrook’s transformation.)
A renowned painter and sculptor whose images of Haitian and Caribbean life have been shown at prestigious institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, Joseph previously juggled his love for the arts and the sciences.
“When the lab closed, I was like the captain saying goodbye to his ship,” he says. “I was the last one to close the lab because our services began shifting to Brookdale Medical Center. It was bittersweet, but I have learned so much from my directors and the people I worked with.”
Joseph arrived in New York City in 1967 with a dream of becoming an architect and a degree from Haiti’s Academy of Fine Arts. Joseph followed four of his brothers from Haiti to Brooklyn, where like many immigrants, they took jobs in health care. Since dreams don’t necessarily saying goodbye to his ship,” he says. “I was the last one to close the lab because our services began shifting to Brookdale Medical Center. It was bittersweet, but I have learned so much from my directors and the people I worked with.”
Joseph arrived in New York City in 1967 with a dream of becoming an architect and a degree from Haiti’s Academy of Fine Arts. Joseph followed four of his brothers from Haiti to Brooklyn, where like many immigrants, they took jobs in health care. Since dreams don’t necessarily put food on the table, Fritz took a CNA job at Kingsbrook Jewish, where his late brother Jean Marie was working in the lab.
“I got the [Kingsbrook lab job] when Jean Marie left to study medicine in Europe. I was more interested in studying architecture at Brooklyn Technical College, but Jean Marie encouraged me to take [science] courses while training me for the job,” says Joseph.
Over time, Kingsbrook Jewish became the intersection of Joseph’s life as an artist, lab scientist, and caregiver.
Joseph volunteered outside the lab during his lunchtimes, lecturing about art and teaching patients in recreational therapy. As painter and sculptor, Joseph is a creator of and witness to the evolution of image and form. His lab specialty of histology is not dissimilar, he says; both demand patience, empathy, and mastery of numerous skills acting in concert.
“I was able to witness the evolution of histochemistry from A to Z. I learned to work with the electron microscope, to examine frozen sections, and to make reagents from conventional to microwave techniques and immunoprocedures, as well as doing special staining for different tissues such as mucosubstances, connective tissues, for fungi, for acidfast bacteria, mucicarmine, congo red, and other abnormal proteins surrounding tissues for amyloidosis.”
Over time, says Joseph, he came to see his work in histology as a fine art.
I’d refer to some procedures in the field as Rembrandt [after the artist], or even Winsor & Newton [a British supplier of fine arts materials],” he adds.
Joseph is now devoting himself full-time to organizing exhibits, writing criticism and poetry, and supporting emerging artists from the Haitian and other Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. He is excited but will miss the pathology lab. Says Joseph: “Human tissue, nuclei, cytoplasm, myelin sheaths, neurofibrils, etc., may offer under microscopic examination a view of another universe that one can hardly imagine with the naked eye.”
