Commonly referred to as “Mr. Chicago” by his friends, Ed Paschke is one of the Windy City’s most celebrated artists. Born and raised in Chicago, Paschke earned his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1961, and after traveling to Mexico, Europe, and New York, returned to SAIC for his MFA in 1970. Some of Paschke’s earliest artistic influences were the animations of Walt Disney, as well as the colorful caricatures the artist’s father drew on the letters he sent home from Europe during WWII.

As the skies clear up and bright summer days begin, we felt it was only fitting to feature a landscape that recently underwent a similar experience. When the painting first came to The Center, our conservators quickly noted that the varnish layer had discolored, and the piece would likely brighten significantly if the varnish was removed.

The face of our first president, George Washington, has become familiar due to the immortalizing portrait of him painted by Gilbert Stuart in the mid-18th century. What isn’t familiar is the name Jane Stuart, Gilbert’s daughter, who was a painter herself. Although she created her own compositions and even held her own studio in Boston in the mid-19th century, Jane is best known for the meticulous copies made of her father’s work in an attempt to help keep his legacy alive. Recently, one of Jane's copies came through The Center’s doors with a substantial round tear below the portrait's left eye.