Although Paschke was inclined toward representational imagery, he learned to paint based on the principles of
abstraction and
expressionism. Like many Chicago artists, he had a fondness for
outsider art, as well as
tattoo art. There is a picture of him from the late 1970s showing his body covered in elaborate tattoos that he claimed he would often paint on himself for personal gratification. He avidly collected photographs-related visual media in all its forms, from newspapers, magazines, and posters to film, television, and video, with a preference for imagery that tended toward the risqué and the marginal. Through this he studied the ways in which these media transformed and stylized the experience of reality, which in turn impacted on his consideration of formal and philosophical questions concerning veracity and invention in his own painting. At the same time, he sought living and working situations—from factory hand to psychiatric aide—that would connect him with Chicago's diverse ethnic communities as well as feed his fascination for gritty urban life and human abnormality. Thus he developed a distinctive body of work that oscillated between personal and aesthetic introspection and confronting social and cultural values. In 1968, his drawing of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Petunia Pig was published as the back cover of
Witzend number 5. In his early paintings Paschke both incorporated and challenged depictions of legendary figures by transforming them into corps exquis, such as
Pink Lady (1970) where he set
Marilyn Monroe’s famous head atop the suited body of an anonymous male accordion player; or
Painted Lady (1971) where he redesigned screen legend
Claudette Colbert as a tattooed lady fresh from a freak show. Another direction through which he explored the features and quirks of meaning and logic was in paintings of leather accessories interpreted as anthropomorphized fetish objects, such as
Hairy Shoes (1971) and
Bag Boots (1972). In the decades separating
Pink Lady and
Matinee (1987), Paschke shifted his interest from print to electronic media and a dazzling spectrum of televisual waves and flashes began to fill the paintings. Forms and images disintegrated, broken apart in the fabric of electronic disturbance and its surface. In
Matinee, the face of
Elvis Presley is fragmented into a field of glowing swathes of color with lips and eyes alone suggesting the human presence beneath the electronic overlay. Paschke made use of an overhead projector to layer images, which he then rendered using the traditional and time-consuming medium of oil painting. He began with an underpainting in black and white, using a simple can of "Tru-Test" house paint, then addressed it with refined systems of colored glazing or impasto to enliven the optical and physical textures of his painting. He often used synthetic Phthalocynine colors to achieve his neon colored look. With this original and painstaking process he created a formal parallel with the black-and-white-to-color progression in the historical development of printing, film, and television images, at the same time moving the subject matter from the particular to the non-specific to allow a wider range of interpretation. In his later work, once again forms became more solidified, moving back towards certain kinds of psychologized presences and the edgy tension that characterized his earlier work. for Fine Arts. His work is included many museum collections including: the
Art Institute of Chicago, the
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art,
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis,
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.,
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York,
Centre Pompidou, Paris, and
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art,
Strasbourg. Major exhibitions include: •
Ed Paschke: Selected Works 1967–1981,
Renaissance Society,
University of Chicago (1982, traveled to the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston) •
Ed Paschke Retrospective,
Centre Pompidou, Paris (1989–1990, traveled to the Dallas Museum, Texas and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1990–1991) •
Ed Paschke: Recent Work,
Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago (2003) •
Ed Paschke: Chicago Icon, A Retrospective,
Chicago History Museum (2006) At the time of his death a New York critic lamented that Paschke's "contribution to the art of his time was somewhat obscured by his distance from New York." As a student, Koons admired Paschke's work and became his assistant in Chicago in the mid-1970s while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Paschke would prove to be an important mentor and formative inspiration for the young artist. Paschke's influence in both his subject matter and pioneering use of color continues to influence artists around the world. ==References==