WILLIAM PACHNER
Born in Czechoslovakia, Pachner studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in the 1930s and immigrated to the United States in 1939. Days later, the Nazis invaded his country. During World War II, all eighty members of his family died in concentration camps. Pachner had been working as an art director at Esquire magazine. Upon hearing of his family’s fate in 1945, he shifted his focus to an artistic career saying, “From now on, I shall use whatever gifts I have to bear witness to my experience.”
In 1951 Pachner moved to Florida, and for many years divided his time between the Tampa Bay area and Woodstock, New York. He died in November 2017 at age 102.
Pachner received the American Academy Arts and Letters Award in 1949, a Ford Foundation Award for Painting in 1959 and 1964, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960. His work has been in exhibitions at Carnegie Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
STUDIO 1212 ART GALLERY
Studio 1212 artists with William Pachner (far right)
While wintering in the Tampa Bay area, Pachner taught classes that often were discussions of philosophy, wisdom, and life in addition to artwork. In 1971, his students incorporated Studio 1212 as a place to associate, educate, create, exhibit, and sell their artwork. Possibly one of the first artists’ groups in the area (and possibly in Florida), the working studio opened in a storefront at street number 1212. To this day, 55 years later, studio members annually commemorate Pachner with an art exhibit.
Studio 1212 Art Gallery operates as a membership-based, 501(c)3 non-profit artist group in Downtown Dunedin, Florida.
