Chicago Sailor

Prints and Drawings

2000

Tony Fitzpatrick
American, born 1958

Chicago native Tony Fitzpatrick is both an artist and a poet. He has been a fixture of the Chicago-area art scene since the 1980s, and in 2009 was proclaimed by Newcity as the “best iconic Chicago personality now that Studs [Terkel] is gone.” Prints illustrating his poem Bum Town amply demonstrate Fitzpatrick’s reflections on his beloved hometown in word and image. This book-length poem, published in 2001, is a gritty homage to his father and the disappearing Chicago of his own youth. Fitzpatrick’s verse recounts memories of driving around Chicago in his father’s Oldsmobile as together they listened to a White Sox baseball game on the radio. The duo wind their way through the city’s streets, recalling various now-long-gone landmarks on their way to return the ghost of Fitzpatrick’s uncle, who died as a child, to his resting place in Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Tony Fitzpatrick
Title: Chicago Sailor
Place: United States (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 2000
Medium: Etching with aquatint in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions: Image: 14.5 × 11.9 cm (5 3/4 × 4 11/16 in.); Plate: 15 × 12.5 cm (5 15/16 × 4 15/16 in.); Sheet: 25.7 × 23 cm (10 1/8 × 9 1/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mickey Cartin in honor of the artist
Reference Number: 2011.947

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