When I first met Patric McCoy, he mentioned his vast collection of Black art. I was not ready!
I stepped inside his home, and my jaw dropped at the over 1,500 art pieces he has acquired and hung proudly on his walls. Many were created by Black Chicagoans. I smiled when I spotted a collage tin by contemporary collage artist Kee Mabin. No room was off limits: even his bathroom is decorated from floor to ceiling.
In his spare room, Patric displays a painting by his father that found its way back to the McCoy family after being lost in the early 1900s. Someone read an article in The New York Times about his art collection and put two and two together. The piece was returned to Patric, and even though it was originally purchased for three dollars, this is his most valuable piece in his collection.
If you pay close attention, much of the art in his home tells you who Patric is. I noticed a collection of miniature bicycles in the corner of his living room; a bicycle also hangs from the kitchen ceiling, and portraits he took in the South Side sprinkle throughout the apartment. He pointed to a section of the wall that seems to be missing something and tells me that he will fill it with something soon, while the original art has been lent to an art exhibition he’s participating in.
In the spirit of Patric McCoy and the article I previously wrote on him for the Weekly, I decided to take pictures of this collection with my polaroid camera.