John Banasiak was born in 1950 and grew up in Harvey, IL, just south of Chicago, in a community of first- and second-generation Eastern European families. His father was a die setter at the nearby Maremont Muffler factory, and John expected to do the same. Encouraged by a teacher to consider college, he applied to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago his senior year. When his father died after graduation, John assumed his father’s job - and his locker - at the muffler factory.

In July, learning that he had been offered a full scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “The air suddenly seemed to have…a clarity that magically opened a distance that I previously couldn’t see,” he remembers. John earned his BFA and MFA at the school, working as a night watchman in the museum to pay for his supplies. In 1971, consumed by his photography classes, he began working weekends as a bartender at George Brown’s Bar. It was a familiar place, filled with people he knew, and he began shooting its patrons and looking for the “decisive moments” that told a story. The Polish, Ukrainian, and Italian families that lived nearby gathered there to socialize, celebrate, dance, and tell stories.