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Frank Pannier
A Chicago Abstract Painter Remembered Retrospectively
Pannier primarily created large diamond-shaped canvases, painted concurrently, in a series devoted to one subject matter. Often the subject was Chicago classic architecture, or encompassed architectural elements in the structure of the paintings.
A series could be up to a dozen canvases of similar shape, technique and color palette. He layered a myriad of colors of acrylic paint, latex and compound, rendering his art three dimensional. Pannier also stretched canvas over wood blocks giving it depth, and making it structurally similar to architectural design.
Architecture Imitates Art?
Constructed 1982-1984
Known as "The Diamond"
150 Michigan Ave
Chicago, Illinois
"Solitare #1" 1979
Exhibited:
Zriny-Hayes Gallery
Chicago, Illinois - 1979
Did the architect Sheldon Schlegman of the firm A. Epstein and Sons see the Zriny-Hayes Gallery Exhibition anytime in October - November 1979? Did Schlegman draw plans before then?
Pannier shared various different stories on how the 150 Michigan Avenue building came to resemble his painting "Solitaire #1."
According to Wikipedia:
"It is popularly referred to as the Diamond Building or the Vagina Building (from the locally popular but apocryphal story that, with its prominent vertical slit up the front, the building was designed to be a yonic counter to the phallic nature of most skyscrapers)."
Referring it as the Vagina Building is interesting because it resembles his painting "Solitare #1" - a series dedicated to a woman with an abstract rendition of her anatomy.
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