ISBN: 978-1-59005-620-2

Hardcover, cloth, 9 x 12 inches, 80 pages, 47 duotone plates. 

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One night, as I stood back and watched the spectacle of a Saturday night celebration at George Brown’s, I remember thinking that that these were people who knew how to play hard and have a good time. They were survivors of the two world wars and the Great Depression. They knew what difficult times were, but when it was time to have a good time they had one and partied as if there were no tomorrow, or yesterday for that matter…I thought that maybe they were able to enjoy life this way because they lived through times where it actually did seem as if there would be no tomorrow. — John Banasiak

John Banasiak was born in 1950 and grew up in Harvey, IL, just south of Chicago, in a community of first- and second-generation Eastern European families. His father was a die setter at the nearby Maremont Muffler factory, and John expected to do the same. Encouraged by a teacher to consider college, he applied to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago his senior year. When his father died after graduation, John assumed his father’s job - and his locker - at the muffler factory.

In July, learning that he had been offered a full scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “The air suddenly seemed to have…a clarity that magically opened a distance that I previously couldn’t see,” he remembers. John earned his BFA and MFA at the school, working as a night watchman in the museum to pay for his supplies. In 1971, consumed by his photography classes, he began working weekends as a bartender at George Brown’s Bar. It was a familiar place, filled with people he knew, and he began shooting its patrons and looking for the “decisive moments” that told a story. The Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian families that lived nearby gathered there to socialize, celebrate, dance, and tell stories.

This volume contains 45 black and white images from the time Banasiak spent behind the bar, taking photos on a collapsible Kodal Retina and looking for “someone wrapped in an atmospheric magic.” His photographs and writing capture a time of close friendships, modest living, and unspoken memories of the painful years of WWII, just 26 years past.

Banasiak’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Walker Art Center, the Tweed Museum of Art, the Kansas City Art Museum, the International Center of Photography, Light Work, and the South Dakota Art Museum.