Jim Fitzpatrick - Chinatown T-Shirt

It is impossible to focus on just one aspect of Jim Fitzpatrick’s art. The Irish artist produced hundreds of images for Phil Lynott and his band Thin Lizzy. Fitzpatrick produced the art for many Thin Lizzy album covers, including the Chinese dragon imagery for the album “Chinatown.”An accomplished photographer, he captured some of the last images of the rocker before Lynott’s untimely death in 1986. Fitzpatrick and Lynott forged a friendship early on. He recalled that Lynott, who had already begun to gain notoriety with his band, once told him, “We have to work together. We’d be a deadly combination.”

Over the next 12 years, Fitzpatrick created an exhaustive array of what he now considers some of his best work for Thin Lizzy: album covers, flashing logos, black-and-white designs, T-shirts, tour jackets, and photographs. Outside the world of rock, Fitzpatrick has created a rich body of Celtic art, including richly decorated scrolls. The most widely recognizable piece of art that Fitzpatrick created, however, is that of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. Fitzpatrick had met Guevara years earlier, and the two had a brief but memorable conversation.

In the wake of a politically motivated assassination, Fitzpatrick reproduced the iconic image he had created, which he purposely chose not to copyright.The picture was widely reproduced in many different formats, including posters, T-shirts, and banners. The image became synonymous with left-leaning activism and political protest, but also transcended its subject and became a pop culture icon. Fitzpatrick describes himself as a “militant pacificst.” He once said all his art heroes were “American comic book artists.” His work, rich in Irish folklore, is mystical, otherworldly, and idyllic.