Patrick D. Pagnano

Patrick D. Pagnano was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1947. As a second

generation Italian-American grounded in a devotion to family, honor, and

personal responsibility imparted by the Catholic Church and his working class

parents, Pagnano maintained a lifelong allegiance with underprivileged

communities, recognizing that despite their differences and ethnic backgrounds,

they shared a common struggle.

Pagnano graduated with honors from Columbia College Chicago in 1972, where

he majored in photography. After a brief visit to New York with a fellow Columbia

classmate, he fell in love with the city’s chaotic, freewheeling energy and knew

this was where he had to be in order to pursue his dream of becoming a

professional photojournalist. He and his wife Kari moved to NYC in 1974.

Over his five-decade career, Pagnano achieved success as a photojournalist and

commercial photographer, securing freelance assignments from clients such as

Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, and Business Week. Pagnano also had a

20-year relationship with CBS and worked on programs including 60 Minutes,

CBS Evening News, Late Night with David Letterman, Kennedy Center Honors,

Country Music Awards and the Grammys. His most treasured journalistic

coverage was of Fidel Castro in 1996, traveling to Cuba with Dan Rather for 48

Hours.

Armed with his ever-present Leica, freelancing provided Pagnano with the time

and flexibility to pursue his own passion – the art of street photography.

Recognizing the ways in which streets are among the most egalitarian spaces in

public life, Pagnano was drawn to scenes that revealed the way environment

played a profound role in shaping people’s behavior. Here, people of all

backgrounds converge, creating extraordinary moments of random chaos.

In 2002 Pagnano self-published Shot on the Street, a culmination of his color

street photography that captures the tension and fleeting juxtapositions of the

urban landscape. The title refers to both the act of street photography and the

psychological effects of the street. “It can excite, anger, defeat and inspire. The

street’s influence and energy never ceases,” Pagnano observed.

Pagnano’s second book, Empire Roller Disco (Anthology, 2022), captures one

special night in 1980 at Brooklyn’s legendary roller rink, when the photographer

and skaters were perfectly in sync. “I’ve never really thought of myself as an

artist,” Patrick wrote in his notebooks. “I feel like I’m just a citizen of the world and

should conduct myself responsibly and not isolate myself from reality—

photography is just what I do.”

Pagnano’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of

Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library,

Art Institute of Chicago, and Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.

He died in New York City in 2018. Patrick D. Pagnano was a man of intuition,

feeling, and generosity, someone the world cannot easily replace.