� �Pacheco�s Art of Ybor City

by Ferdie Pacheco

M.D.

�

����Now, in Pacheco�s Art of Ybor City, the Renaissance man and bon� vivant�best known as Muhammad Ali�s �Fight Doctor�- a man who� has also�worn�the hats of family physician, Emmy Award-winning� boxing�commentator, historian, playwright, screenplay writer, and� author of five�books-�here�offers�33 of the paintings that have�established�his reputation as an artist.

������� In these full-color reproductions we see the Ybor City of the� 1930's and��40's (and earlier) that inspired Pacheco from the� beginning. With the�same�flare and storyteller�s gift evident in Ybor� City Chronicles and The�Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook,� he narrates the unpredictable�course�of his�development as an artist� and tells the story behind each�painting in this collection.

��� In the bright muralist-style colors that have become his� stock-in-trade,�Pacheco renders a storehouse of memoirs too vivid� ever to grow dull. So�long as he has hold of us, there is no Ybor City� more real than this one-�with its cigar factories, palm trees, bolita� gangsters, trolley cars, clubs and�diners and cafes, and the� Spaniards, Cubans, Sicilians, and oddball�personalities who walk its� red-bricked streets.

��� Picture book, memoir, history lesson, and portrait of the artist,� Pacheco�s Art of Ybor City is four books in one. Together they� do what only art�can:�they turn memory, love, and nostalgia� into a city you can visit.