Ed Paschke Promo

Born and raised in Chicago, Paschke was often referred to by his friends as "Mr. Chicago." Whereas many artists from the Midwest eventually pack up their bags and move to New York to "make it" in the art world, Paschke felt a special kinship with his city or origin.

"In the early 1970s I had a couple of shows in New York and basically though that to move there I would have to transform myself in some dramatic way to fit in (due to a different aesthetic artistically there at the time) which I didn't want to do. I wanted to maintain my own personal evolution given whatever references or sources that were a part of my background here in Chicago. I thought that moving would be counter-productive artistically. Only time will tell if my decision was the correct one. "

He loved the diversity of the nations most under-rated city and spending time in such legendary haunts as the Green Mill in Uptown, and Club Lago in River North. A former youth athlete, Paschke loved the intensity of the Chicago sports scene and frequented the Chicago Stadium during the Chicago Bulls championship run as well as both baseball stadiums during their annual drives of futility. Most of all he liked the grittiness and underbelly of the city well known for gangsters and frequently took friends, students or associates on his well-known "crime tour" in which he would drive around the city pointing out locations where the city's most infamous crimes had occurred.

Paschke achieved a level of celebrity in Chicago, rare for any artist, in which he was often recognized on the street. He even appeared on a 50 foot billboard alongside Michael Jordan, the city's most famous resident. For someone that had suffered through years of intense shyness as a youth it was compelling metamorphosis.

One year after his death, Paschke became one of the select few Chicago residents to have a street named after him. And not just any street. But rather Monroe Street between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive, which divides the Art Institute of Chicago which played such an intricate part of Paschke's development as an artist, and Millennium Park, a newly built area which has come to symbolize the visual arts in Chicago.

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