By signcraft
Posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2023
Longtime SignCraft contributor and outstanding Chicagoland signpainter Pat Finley died tragically Saturday, September 30, 2023. He was 78.
Pat always described himself as “just a basic signpainter,” but he was much more than that. He was a great friend and a humble, warm guy who always had time to talk signs and encourage others who were interested in signpainting and pinstriping.
Pat had a style of his own—with clean, effective layouts, beautiful scripts, free-flowing casuals, great color choices. He was still working every day in the same shop that he was in when we met him in 1984, turning out hand-lettered signs and truck graphics every day, along with high impact stock car lettering.
As a teen in the late 1950s, Pat started pinstriping, which led him to signpainting. A racing fan, he started lettering stock cars and developed quite a reputation. In the late ’60s, Bob Behounek was fascinated with hand lettering and remembers discovering Pat’s work.
“At 15, I had my Dad drive me 60 miles to a racetrack to see more of Pat’s stock car lettering,” Bob says, laughing. “They looked great. He lettered a lot of them—and when they got wrecked, he lettered them again. I got to know Pat and later worked with him on plenty of projects. He was a real inspiration.”
Pat was an inspiration and mentor to many, and his loss is a big loss to the sign painting world. He was a very active member of the Chicago Brushmasters and had helped at all their charity events over the years.
We can’t think of a better way to remember Pat than by sharing a few of the features we did on his work in SignCraft over the years with everyone. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to click the articles and flip the pages to enjoy his work.
March/April 1985: Interview – Pat Finley
January/February 1989: Truck lettering: An advertising and promotional bargain
March/April 1989: Follow-up – Pat Finley
March/April 2008: Lead sleds call for heavy lines
Painting wall graphics the old school way
