Famed Chicago painter dies at 65

CHICAGO -- Painter Ed Paschke, one of Chicago's best-known artists of the past half century, has died at age 65.\nPaschke died in his sleep on Thanksgiving at the home he shared with his daughter, Sharon, who said heart problems ran in the family and that physicians had noted a murmur in her father's heart.\nThe son of a Northwest side bakery truck driver, Paschke studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was steeped in the abstract expressionism that was the dominant American art movement in the 1950s. But when he emerged as an artist in the early 1960s, Paschke became a leader of a new school called the Chicago Imagists.\nAlthough Paschke and his colleagues rejected pure abstraction to return their focus on the human body and other recognizable imagery, their paintings often took on a mysterious look, mingling elements of dreamlike surrealism, nonwestern artistic traditions and the icons of popular culture.\nPaschke, who was considered to be the best known of the Imagists, was known for his bright, almost phosphorescent colors. He had his first solo show in Chicago in 1970, and his first Paris show in 1974.\nHis 1989-90 retrospective at the Art Institute was the first the museum granted to a living alumnus of its school.\n"His work is what people think of when they think about art in Chicago," said fellow artist Tony Fitzpatrick. "He leaves behind an enormous and amazing body of work. His output in his lifetime was staggering and groundbreaking. He's the best artist Chicago ever produced."\nHis works are in public collections from the Art Institute of Chicago to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to the Musee d'Art Moderne Nationale in Paris.\nDespite the success, Paschke was modest.\n"I wanted to be an interpreter of my time," Paschke said in 1990 when discussing what he was about. "One's work is always autobiographical, reflecting your life at the time you did it. I've always felt I was like a filtration system, processing materials floating around me, attempting to select, emphasize and editorialize. Life is the raw material. I try to make something out of it."\nIn addition to his prolific painting career, Paschke also taught art for more than 30 years at such schools as Barat College, the Art Institute, Columbia College and Northwestern University. He was also known for his generosity and encouragement of younger artists.\n"Talk about losing the good guys, I can't think of anyone 'gooder' than Ed," said Tony Jones, current president of the School of the Art Institute.\nPaschke is survived by his wife, his daughter, a son, one granddaughter, a brother and his mother.