CHICAGO — Two artists, Tony Fitzpatrick and Danny Torres, were standing in the lobby of a new building on LaSalle Street, across from a building that was once Gino’s East, now shuttered, and before that was Michael Jordan’s restaurant and long before that was a place named Ireland’s.
The city is an organic thing, ever transforming, and this new building, at 448 N. LaSalle St., is a fine and encouraging example of the new. Twelve stories of glass and steel and striking from the outside, it recalls the work of the great architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and a sign near its entrance announces “The Office of Tomorrow is Coming Here.”
Inside, talking with the two artists was a man named Jay Javers and he said to me, “We wanted a real Chicago building.” He and his son Charlie are principals in the CA Ventures and Midwest Property Group Ltd., which developed and built the structure with the Lamar Johnson Collaborative architectural company.
More to the point, Javers became an early morning buddy of artist Tony Fitzpatrick as they swam laps at the East Bank Club. Javers told Fitzpatrick one morning about this new building and about his desire to have it embellished with art.
Now, putting art in commercial buildings is not a new trend. Many buildings contain original artwork. Our city’s private Union League Club contains one of the greatest art collections in the non-museum world.
This latest art adventure began with the heart attack Fitzpatrick suffered in 2015. “My cardiac rehab nurse was this wonderful woman named Rosa at St. Mary’s Hospital. She told me her nephew was an artist and asked if I would meet with him.”
Of course, he said yes.
That artist was Danny Torres, some three decades younger than Fitzpatrick, who has a long history of encouraging and mentoring younger artists.
“So I came and met Tony and we just sat there talking and it was like we had known each other forever,” Torres told me. “It was like in that movie, ‘Back to the Future,’ where Marty meets his older self.”
“I was knocked out by his work and decided to give him a show,” Fitzpatrick said.
That show was mounted at what was then Fitzpatrick’s AdventureLand gallery. On opening night, Torres sold nine of the 15 paintings on exhibit. He soon sold them all.
“That changed everything for me,” says Torres. “I was on the road to becoming a commercial illustrator but in my heart wanted to be a fine artist.”
Torres was raised by a single mother in Logan Square and Portage Park. “I was the definition of a latchkey kid,” he says. “Most of my friends were too. We roamed the city streets like a pack of wild dogs.”
Eventually, he and his mother moved to Glenview where he attended high school.
“I managed to keep my nose clean but I did not like suburban life,” he says. “Everything was cookie-cutter similar. The city was alive and organic and constantly changing and exciting. I don’t like to paint scenes that are conventionally pretty. I like to paint liquor stores and hot dog stands, alleyways and garbage cans. It takes me back to the years I roamed the streets with my friends. When I see a building or neighborhood in Chicago, I imagine the stories that have happened and all the knuckleheads involved. That is what I have tried to do with my work, leave the viewer creating their own narrative.”
He attended community college for a couple of years and then earned a degree from the American Academy of Art and a graduate degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
After the AdventureLand success, Fitzpatrick asked for Torres’ help when he was commissioned to create a massive mural for the exterior of the new Steppenwolf Theatre building last spring. It was 12 feet high by 76 feet long, titled “Night and Day in the Garden of All Other Ecstasies” and designed in honor of the late Steppenwolf artistic director and Fitzpatrick’s friend Martha Lavey. My colleague Chris Jones called it “a beautiful piece of Chicago-style art.”
That success led the pair to create a company, a public-art initiative named Fitzpatrick/Torres, Humboldt, Caballo. Their next project was in Glen Ellyn in 2021: two 8-feet by 10-feet murals by Fitzpatrick near a new pedway that connects pedestrians to the Metra, garages and downtown businesses. It is filled with birds native to the area and a background rich in the pop culture imagery that fills Fitzpatrick’s work.
Four Torres paintings hang in the 448 lobby. The paintings are, in a word, spectacular. And in another couple of words, so Chicago. They are alive with color and each features a bright neon sign. The 4 feet by 8 feet paintings feature Candlelite, the tavern and pizza oasis; Alcala’s, the venerable western wear emporium; and Byron’s, the hot dog joint. And if you look closely at the Byron’s painting and you can see Fitzpatrick ordering food.
“I am very happy and proud,” said Torres. “The past year has been a blur because I have been cooped up in my studio really putting my heart and soul into these pieces.”
When the partygoers moved to the roof of the building, some short speeches were delivered. Javers, who was born in the Austin neighborhood, talked again about the importance of creating “a Chicago building.” Fitzpatrick talked about working with Torres to “curate” the building, inviting other local artists to bring their work to other now-empty wall spaces. Torres said a few words. His mother smiled.
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