About the artist:

Ferdie Pacheco was born in Tampa, Florida on December 8, 1927 with deep ancestral roots in Spain. As a painter, his imaginative use of color and design along with his aggressive use of vivid, slashing, colorful patterns exude a sense of strength expressing the bold, gutsy, personal statements of a man who has immersed himself fully in life. Pacheco has the rare ability to transfer these experiences onto canvas through intense color and brushstrokes. His skills earned him the Gold Medal and First Prize in Tonneins, France : the First Prize, Best Colorist at Musee Du Luxembourg. Ferdie Pacheco , MD has been called a Renaissance Man because of his polifacetic career. He has been successful as a pharmacist, medical doctor, Fight Doctor in boxing, including working as a corner man for twelve world champions, including Muhammad Ali for seventeen years. He also served as a boxing commentator for NBC, Showtime and Univision, winning two Emmies. During this time he was the Boxing Consultant for NBC for ten years. He is retired from broadcasting after being on for 25 years. He has had 14 books published, and written articles, columns, reviews for many of the major newspapers in America . Like other exceptionally creative individuals, Pacheco showed precocity in childhood where he began drawing and painting at the age of five. His creative abilities continued through adolescence. At the age of fourteen, Pacheco realized that he wanted to become a doctor and began assisting in surgery. His passion for the arts continued through his health care training as his cartooning financed his medical education. Through medicine, he studied the human form, which in return gave his art anatomical integrity. His motifs were affected by art-historical influences-specifically Vincent Van Gogh; Mexican artists: Tamayo and Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo; German artists: George Grosz and Oscar Kokoscka, and American artists: Thomas Hart Benton and Fletcher Martin. Pacheco's deftly designed, intensely colored pieces are abstract conceptions reflective of rich life experiences and profound academic curiosity. Pacheco knew little Havana way before the retro-Cuban wave. As a young doctor, transplanted from his native Ybor City in Tampa , he set up his practice on South West Eighth Street the year the early Cuban exiles began streaming into the city. In their stories, he found echoes of his own family's immigrant roots, as his father was the Cuban-born son of a Spanish consul on the island. These are stories that would stock his repertoire of detail-laden, human anecdotes and inspire splashes of colors that he would transfer onto canvas. Painting remains his passion and his popularity is fast spreading to other countries within the Art World. Currently Pacheco was commissioned by Verizon to do major work to illustrate the cover of Tampa 's Yellow Pages, 2000-2001 edition. Joe Morrissey of St Louis commissioned Ferdie to paint four large epic battle sequences each twelve feet by six feet and sold for a five-figure price. They included "Picket's Charge", "The Alamo", "Custer's Last Stand" and Marshall Ney's Charge at Waterloo ." He was chosen to be placed in permanent collection at the State Capital, Tallahassee 2004. Another commission for the West Tampa library will be installed early 2005. His paintings are in the collections of many leading personalities and celebrities such as Andy Garcia, Evander Holyfield, Budd Shulberg. Shirley MacLaine, Ernest Borgnine, Petula Clark, to name a few. Pacheco's work is currently selling at Deck the Walls in the Westshore Mall in Tampa and Mind's Eye Gallery in Ft Lauderdale. For one year Pacheco appeared as a movie and book critic for CNBC-TV, as well as hosted a talk show segment. He is an accomplished speaker and was under contract with Pinch Scotch for two years to speak every month on a series of subjects: boxing, art, books, history, and Flamenco dance. He appeared as an actor, playing himself, in the movie "The Great White Hype." A movie he wrote for an Italian Company Pico Productions called "Virtually Yours" has been distributed throughout Europe . A documentary on his life Ferdie Pacheco “The World of the Fight Doctor” will be shown on HBO in the summer of 2004. Pacheco is currently writing a volume of boxing stories of the famous 5th Street Gym. Ferdie Pacheco has been happily married for 33 years to Luisita Sevilla, noted Flamenco artist and photographer, who also manages his art and types his manuscripts. They live in Miami. TV: 25 years experience. NBC- Olympic Boxing, Seoul 88, Barcelona 92 Univision-Spanish Cable: Boxing in Spanish, Showtime Theater:"Someone Like You" Original Story by for Petula Clark Movies: Sweet Sam"Chanan Sazz/Cannon Globus "Night Lights" Alan King/ Hitzig Prod., Alan Ladd Jr./Warners Paul Mazlansky Prod. "Liza" Liza Productions "Blue" Alabiso Prod. "The Spirit is Willing" Alabiso Prod./ "Journeys" Rewrite Awards 1990Best Colorist, Musee de Luxembourg, Paris 1987 Best Latin American Artist, Le centre Cultural Paul-Dumail de Tonneins , France also Gold Medal & First Prize Education Robert E. Lee Tampa, Florida Grade 1-6 Thomas Jefferson Tampa, Florida Grade 7-12 College University of Tampa Freshman 1944-45 University of Tennessee Summers 1945-1946 Springhill College Mobile, AL 1945-1948 University of Florida BS Pharmacy 1949-1951 University of Miami MD Medicine 1954-1958 Internship Mt Sinai Hospital Miami Beach 1958-1959 Private Practice 1960-1980