Fitz Maurice is an American artist who had traveled widely and created art on the international scene. At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was living and working in Germany and produced a series of paintings, drawings, and prints reflecting her experience of that momentous event and the Reunification of the two Germanies.
The collected works toured originally in Germany 1991 - 1994 under the title "Berlin: Metamorphosis". One of the paintings, "Communism on the Ground" was purchased by the German Parliament for its permanent collection.
Fitz Maurice continued her international travels and continued to make reflecting her committment to human rights and tolerance. She created a work "The War of Human Rights" for the International Society for Human Rights, which adopted it as their symbol.
In 2009, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Wall of Berlin, the collection was shown in New York, at the Queens Museum of Art and again at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum of Queens College, CUNY. In conjunction with that exhibition, Fitz Maurice created a sumbol of Tolerance, endorsed by the city of New York's Unisphere Board. This re-exhibition was entitled "Common Ground" and a catalog of the exhibit published by the Godwin Ternbach Museum.
The message of Common Ground is:
"Let's take down all the walls standing between countries and begin to live as one people on one planet. Tolerance is the first step towards peace. First, we need 'All Walls Down' so people aroung the world can join together in mutual respect."