William Pachner, one of the most distinguished artists ever to live in the Tampa Bay area, turns 100 on Friday, April 17. In celebration, the MFA is presenting a select installation, William Pachner: Centenary, in the Lee Malone Gallery from Friday, April 10, through Sunday, July 26. Katherine Pill, Assistant Curator of Art after 1950, has selected the works.
One of them, View of My Birthplace (1958), was the only painting by an area artist chosen for the MFA’s impressive Inaugural Exhibition, which opened the Museum in 1965. It recognized Mr. Pachner’s talent and his growing stature in the art world and is an ideal work to spotlight the MFA’s 50th anniversary. Mr. Pachner divided his time for many years between the Tampa Bay area and Woodstock, New York, where he now resides year-round. He included this inscription on the back of the painting: “The Lord Be Praised for Calvin and Betty Vary,” early supporters of his work and the MFA. Mrs. Vary donated the painting to the Museum in 1967.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Mr. Pachner came to New York in 1939 on a temporary visa and while there, learned the terrible news that the Nazis had occupied his country. He stayed in the U.S. and a year later, became the art director for Esquire. During the war, he published anti-Fascist illustrations for Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and other popular magazines and received a citation for Meritorious Service from the National War Fund in 1944. That same year, he had his first solo show at the Barry Stephens Gallery in New York.
His life changed forever, when, in 1945, he learned that his entire family, all 80 members, had been killed by the Nazis. This tragic news increased his determination to move beyond commercial art and to focus on his paintings and drawings. He once said, “Whatever gifts I had were put to use to bear witness.”
Nature, specifically the woods, can be seen as a refuge—and a hiding place—in his work. His black-and-white drawings of trains recall his childhood fascination with locomotives, shared with his grandfather Leopold, as well as the vehicles which transported Jews to the death camps.
The Holocaust and his family tragedy led Mr. Pachner on a search for spirituality, for memories, for a broad humanity. It is astounding, really, that Mr. Pachner ever became a visual artist. As a child, he lost vision in his left eye while sharpening a pencil. Later in life, vision in his right eye declined to the point where he became blind in 1981.
He noted, “The hand has lost its freedom and must obey commands from the soul.” He continued to produce powerful black-and-white drawings, such as the Untitled (Abstract Portrait), 1966, in the MFA’s installation, and abstract paintings, utilizing collage, as in View of My Homeland (1979), lent by trustee Robert and Chris Hilton. The title of his retrospective at the Tampa Museum of Art in 1987, William Pachner affirmations: 1936-1986, conveys the overall trajectory of his career and life.
Mr. Pachner’s combination of abstraction and representation reveals a lifelong search for profound meaning, beyond what we can see. The magnificent Window #14 (1981) is a prime example and a recent gift of trustee Hazel and William R. Hough in honor of the MFA’s 50th anniversary. His limited vision and ultimate blindness may also have contributed to this inner exploration.
The MFA is fortunate to have 13 works by Mr. Pachner in the collection. He is also represented in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota; the Tampa Museum of Art; the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland; and the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg.
His work has been shown at major museums and universities across the country and in Israel and was chosen for the Whitney Museum of American Art Annual, which later became the Biennial, and the Carnegie International, both in 1948. The National Institute of Arts and Letters presented him a prestigious award in 1949 for his “masterful use of powerful design to express a deep emotional experience.” His paintings were selected for the Fine Arts Pavilion at the 1965 World’s Fair in New York. He has received two Ford Foundation grants and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The MFA is proud to salute Mr. Pachner on the momentous occasion of his 100th birthday.