Palazzolo, Thomas
American, b. 1937
BiographyAlthough perhaps best-known as an independent filmmaker, Thomas Palazzolo has also been an active photographer and painter since the 1960s. After studying at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, Palazzolo moved to Chicago in 1960. He went on to complete an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1965 and has lived in the city ever since. Throughout Palazzolo's career, Chicago has been at the heart of his work in photography and film. Gradually, the city emerges as his primary subject, while he focuses on particular events or places. Such events include the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention and the city's historic Maxwell Street marketplace, which was razed in 2001 by the University of Illinois to make way for new development. Palazzolo began photographing at Maxwell Street in the early 1960s, and in 2008 he published a book of this work, which, in his words, provides a multi-layered portrait of a long-gone place. Palazzolo has taught at Columbia College Chicago and Daley City College.