jim ptacek

Cleveland, Ohio

After graduating from Cathedral Latin High School in 1960, Jim started his art career. He attended classes at The Cleveland Institute of Art and later graduated from Cooper School of Art as an architectural Illustrator. Jim served two years in the U.S. Army working as a draftsman / illustrator and playing basketball for Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. In 1968, he married his wife, Therese. They have three sons Jim, Joe, and David as well as four grandchildren. Jim and his wife live in Old Brooklyn, on Cleveland's West Side.

For ten years, Jim maintained a frame shop and art studio on Pearl Road in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn. Through the years, besides creating and publishing his own artwork he also worked as an inspector, draftsman, designer, and architectural illustrator for The U. S. Army Corp. of Engineers, Dalton & Dalton, United Cerebral Palsy and The Cuyahoga County Engineer's Office, retiring from that position in 2006.

In the late 1970s Jim started producing limited edition, silkscreen prints of Cleveland. Galleries and decorators started showing and selling his artwork. To this present day, he continues to produce prints, posters, calendars, post cards, Christmas ornaments, men's ties, greeting cards and various commemorative pins.

Jim and his wife love to travel so, since the 1980s, he has expanded his work to include the cities of Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, Mobile, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Nashville, San Juan, Paris and Rome. He has been commissioned to do prints of many local high schools, churches and cities. Rockne's Restaurants display a​ custom collage print of his, at each location.

Today, Jim works out of a studio in his home creating, producing and supplying galleries and decorators with his limited edition prints, posters and various other collectables.