The Chicagoan artist Tony Fitzpatrick died of a coronary heart assault on 11 October. He was 66. A prolific and expansive artist, Fitzpatrick was a giant man who epitomised Chicago together with his sturdy work ethic and a character that was as brash because it was candy.
He was an artist, poet, writer, actor and first-rate raconteur, which made him a preferred visitor or co-host for panels, radio programmes and podcasts. He was maybe finest recognized for his collages, etchings and works on paper, which incorporate textual content plus disparate imagery and supplies together with birds, canine, boxers, baseball, tattoo artwork, color wheels, targets, previous matchbook covers, Chicago and the quantity 9 (which was additionally tattooed on his arm in purple). His work is broadly collected and represented in museum collections together with the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York, the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, DC, and the Artwork Institute of Chicago.
Fitzpatrick was born in 1958 and grew up in a big Irish Catholic household within the western suburbs of Chicago. He labored as a taxi-driver, bouncer, waiter, janitor and boxer earlier than committing himself to artwork. He ran a storefront gallery known as The Edge in Villa Park for 5 years, which relocated in 1989 to the then-ungentrified south loop of Chicago. Renamed World Tattoo, the gallery’s opening evening events had been legendary. Earlier than it closed in 1994, World Tattoo hosted an exhibition of the Los Angeles artist Jim Shaw’s Thrift Retailer Work on behalf of the newly established Society for Outsider, Intuitive and Visionary Artwork (now generally known as the Intuit Artwork Museum).
Set up view of Tony Fitzpatrick’s solo exhibition on the Faculty of DuPage’s Cleve Carney Museum of Artwork, Jesus of Western Avenue Photograph by Faculty of DuPage Newsroom, through Flickr
Fitzpatrick knew get press and befriend the correct folks, however his talent and the standard of his work matched his bravado. He was beneficiant to younger artists and a vocal defender of labour unions and all underdogs.
Because the information of his demise unfold on social media and in native information experiences, so did the tales and tributes. Among the many establishments honouring the late artist was Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater, the place Fitzpatrick carried out repeatedly through the years. He was to current a stay present based mostly on his new e-book, The Solar on the Finish of the Street: Dispatches From an American Life(Eckhartz Press), that was set to run into early November. On the outside of Steppenwolf is Fitzpatrick’s largest work and solely outside mural, Evening and Day within the Backyard of All Different Ecstasies, which was put in in 2021.
“Tony was a unprecedented Chicago artist—and we had been honoured that he thought-about Steppenwolf to be considered one of his creative houses. As a performer, Tony was featured in 5 productions at our theatre throughout the span of greater than twenty years,” a submit on the theatre’s Instagram account reads partly. “His spirit will stay on by means of his work. We’re honoured to have counted him as an inventive collaborator and good friend.”
Set up view of Tony Fitzpatrick’s solo exhibition on the Faculty of DuPage’s Cleve Carney Museum of Artwork, Jesus of Western Avenue Photograph by Faculty of DuPage Newsroom, through Flickr
Fitzpatrick had been recognized with interstitial lung illness this summer time. He posted a photograph of himself on Instagram sporting the nasal oxygen tubing that he could be required to put on on a regular basis. Of his new actuality he wrote that he was “one fortunate Bastard” with “a tremendous household and buddies”.
Fitzpatrick was hospitalised for 4 weeks and was awaiting a double lung transplant when he died. Throughout that point, he by no means stopped creating. Moreover the Steppenwolf manufacturing, he was working towards a brand new exhibition at a tattoo parlour and promotional occasions for his new e-book. With the present US president slamming his beloved Chicago as a “hellhole”, he very a lot meant his e-book to “be a part of the counter-narrative to Trump’s lies”, he lately advised Block Membership Chicago.
Within the e-book’s introduction, Fitzpatrick wrote: “What follows right here is a few of what I bear in mind, a few of what I’ve discovered and rattling close to all of what I like—birds, tales, folks and canine. It’s all a part of a less-than-holy life. Are there any nice parables to be gleaned from these dispatches, poems and footage? I haven’t a clue. What’s most necessary is all that I discovered alongside the best way: that which is for remembering, for not forgetting.”
Fitzpatrick is survived by his spouse, Michele, and their kids, Max and Gabrielle Fitzpatrick.
