Frank Joseph Zirbel

In New York, he resided in the Times Square Hotel, 255 W.43rd St. While in New York he struck up a friendship with the N.Y. artist Chaim Koppleman who let him start using his Soho etching studio as a place to work.

Frank Joseph Zirbel (born 1947) is an American musician, composer, filmmaker and self-taught artist.

His work looks at the darker side of being human, satirizing the human condition while celebrating it at the same time.

Frank Joseph Zirbel was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1947.

Since the early 1970s he has produced and directed several short films and rock videos.

He often did his own camera work and editing.

His drawings on found paper may be one of his most noted series along with the "Asylum" drawings which he did while working at a mental hospital in the mid 1970s.

In 1970, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with a bachelor of arts degree in Philosophy.

Zirbel has claimed that his initial drawing style came together in the second half of the 1970s while he was working the midnight shift in admissions at the Elgin Mental Health Center, Elgin, Illinois.

Here, having previously worked on all the various wards, and with extra time on his hands between admissions, he created unique black-and-white ink drawings inspired by the psychotic and the insane.

During his employ at the hospital, Zirbel also made a 16mm documentary film titled "Duck Eggs and the Miniature Rooster" containing an interview with Hermine Pakrovsky, one of the hospital's revolving-door patients.

His first group show dates back to 1973 at Edgewood Orchard Gallery in Door County, Wisconsin.

More than 70 group and several one-man shows have followed.

Gene Siskel took notice of his film, "Duck Eggs and the Miniature Rooster," and interviewed Zirbel live during the first showing of the film on Night Watch in 1977 (name soon changed to Image Union) on Chicago's PBS channel.

Since 1977, he has made Chicago his home base.

The film made its television debut on Chicago's local PBS affiliate in 1977.

In 1978, he learned how to etch and to this day continues to make prints.

His first etchings date to 1978.

In 1979, he became the bass player for the Chicago new wave band, Bohemia.

The band went on to tour the United States playing various sized clubs in 1983 and the first half of 1984.

He wrote many of Bohemia's more notable songs on their five vinyl releases, including "Automatic Mind," "Empty Room," "No Ordinary Moon," and "Love Turns to Stone."

The Beatles, The Doors and Chicago blues had a big impact on his writing style.

For instance, "Love Turns to Stone," is based on only one chord.

After Bohemia broke up in mid 1984, Zirbel waited a year and in 1985 started his own label, Pteranodon Ltd. Editions, and began releasing his own material over the next decades, including "Anatomy of a Pig," (cassette), "Skull Tracks," (CD - EP), "Two-Headed Fly" (CD with two EPs), and "Live at the Big Horse Lounge" (CD - EP).

Several Chicago blues and jazz musicians appeared on his "Skull Tracks" CD, including Sunnyland Slim, Carey Bell, Barrett Deems, and Howard Levy.

In 1985, he went on a trip to New York to promote his music and art.

The first East Village gallery he approached, Eastman Wahmendorf, placed him in a show and subsequently others.

He started showing art in New York’s East Village in 1985 and for many years thereafter, with twelve N.Y. shows in the late 1980s.

In late November 1986 with the promptings of his gallery, he moved to New York and took up residence at the Times Square Motor Hotel where he resided until moving back to Chicago in mid-1987.

Zirbel has forty years of print making experience.

Zirbel moved to New York in November, 1986 (upon encouragement by his East Village N.Y. art dealer, Joseph Sipos – Helio Gallery).

Also, Zirbel started oil painting and working in color during this time period, encouraged to do so by his New York dealer who invited him to be in a 1986 exhibition of paintings.

In mid-summer 1987, Zirbel returned to Chicago.

Zirbel’s art uses representational imagery within the stylistic modes of figurative expressionism and classical surrealism.

He started drawing as a child and is primarily self-taught.

His film "She-Wolf" was shown at the Chicago Underground Film Festival in 2000 and at the Stuttgart Film Festival in 2001.

Zirbel's most recent movie, "Reptilian Calculations," received its world premier at the Paris Short Film Festival in May 2018.

It's the fifth episode from the 46 minute compilation, "Seven Gnarled Tales of the Unholy."

In 2018, he was invited to exhibit multiple states of his etchings at the Jinling Art Museum, in Nanjing, China.

In addition to creating etchings, Zirbel paints, draws and sculpts.