Tony Fitzpatrick

Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick--who is also a character actor, former boxer and radio disc jockey--creates colorful and intriguing works that layer imagery from his Chicago childhood, advertising, comic books, and science and nature texts. This spring, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, is mounting a national tour of Max and Gaby's Alphabet, the public premiere of a suite of Fitzpatrick's four-color etchings. Max and Gaby's Alphabet spells out the letters of the alphabet in delightful characters and wondrous objects suggested by the artist's two young children. Conceived by the artist as a means to inspire school-age children, Max and Gaby's Alphabet is intended to interest an adult audience as well as young readers. This fully illustrated color catalogue reproduces the finely detailed etchings at their actual size and features an essay by film director Jonathan Demme, in whose films Fitzpatrick has appeared.