William Pachner (April 7, 1915 – November 17, 2017) was a Czech-born American painter who made his home in

Woodstock, New York Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States, in the northern part of the county, northwest of Kingston, NY. It lies within the borders of the Catskill Park. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 in 2000 ...

from 1945.

Life

He studied art in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and worked as an illustrator in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

before coming to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1939 on the eve of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During the war, his

anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

anti-Nazi Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

illustrations appeared in the foremost national magazines. When he learned in 1945 that all members of his family had been exterminated by the Germans, he quit his commercial career and resolved never again to do a commercial job, but to paint what he felt. A former teacher at the Art Students League in Woodstock, Pachner has had numerous one-man exhibitions in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and Florida. In later life he had shows at the

Tampa Museum of Art The Tampa Museum of Art is located in downtown Tampa, Florida. It exhibits modern and contemporary art, as well as Greek, Roman, and Etruscan antiquities. The museum was founded in 1979 and debuted an award-winning new building in 2010 just north ...

, the

Florida Holocaust Museum The Florida Holocaust Museum is a Holocaust museum located at 55 Fifth Street South in St. Petersburg, Florida. Founded in 1992, it moved to its current location in 1998. Formerly known as the Holocaust Center, the museum officially changed to i ...

, and the

Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida) History The MFA was founded by art collector and philanthropist Margaret Acheson Stuart (1896–1980). The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society, the Museum's independent support organization, is named in her honor. The city provided the four-a ...

. He turned 100 in April 2015. Pachner has two children: Ann Koolman Pachner (born 1944) and Charles Edward Pachner (born 1946). Pachner died in November 2017 at the age of 102.

Artistic style

Known as a colorist, Pachner's work includes satiric drawings, erotic figurative, biblical Judaic and Christian themes, photomontages and paintings of great color intensity. Late in his career, he turned to black and white after losing sight in his one good eye. The works in this show represent loss: absence of sight, family, homeland—everything— with the almost unbearable weight of personal and artistic annihilation. While their form, movement, and gesture embrace an essential vitality, these drawings also embody a silent horror and violence. The artist's final works embody a multiplicity of meanings and are an affirmation of humanness and the reminder of the sacredness of all life. About his paintings, Pachner said, "I want, in each work, the world, like my countryman Mahler, the whole pie, not just one triangular wedge of it, but all of it in all of its contradictions, paradoxes, ironies, unbearable sorrows, indescribable joys, tragic comedy, farce, pathos and drama, both authentic and fraudulent. The world, I say to myself, on which all this takes place simultaneously—the world so incomprehensible, so dear, so much in need of our care, of our embrace."

Reception

Robert Martin, former art critic for the

Tampa Times The ''Tampa Times'', or ''Tampa Daily Times'', was a daily newspaper founded in Tampa, Florida, in 1893. It was started by the consolidation of two newspapers by the Tampa Publishing Company, whose vice president was W. B. Henderson, a leading b ...

, once remarked that Pachner's work evidence "…an existential vision of life lived on the trembling brink of pain, and the knowledge of one's own mortality." He further noted that Pachner's "… central European cultural roots have given this artist, as it did so many of America's most humanistic artists when they came here during and after world war II, this ability to experience life in an existential way, always leaving himself open to pain and joy. It is unlikely that the experience of two very different cultural environments will ever again so profoundly influence artists as they did at that particular moment in history." In writing about Pachner's 2012 Tampa Museum show, Paul Smart of the

Woodstock Times ''Woodstock Times'' is a small weekly newspaper in Woodstock, New York that is circulated every Thursday. It was established in 1972 by its current owner Geddy Sveikauskas of Ulster Publishing Ulster Publishing is a newspaper publisher in Kingsto ...

commented, "The works are abstract on the surface, and yet narrative in the ways the artist uses his mastery of the medium to relate internal stories and experiences that are less emotional outbursts, as seen in classic Abstract Expressionist works, and more like psychological essays, or spiritual contemplations in paint." the

and the

Hereceived a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts, two Ford Foundation grants, and an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award for painting. His work is represented in many museums and private collections, including the Whitney Museum, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Butler Institute of American Art, The Florida Holocaust Museum, the Tampa Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida)s, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pachner, William 1915 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists American centenarians American illustrators American male painters American people of Czech descent Czech centenarians Czechoslovak emigrants to the United States People from Brtnice Men centenarians 20th-century American male artists