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Alumni Profiles

• Lourdes Ventura
• Gregg Puchalski
• Christine Roalofs
• John Cha

Gregg Puchalski

Artist’s palette includes everything from billboards to scene painting for Hollywood

When asked to paint vintage-style billboards from the ’20s and ’30s at a Buffalo ballpark for the 1984 movie, The Natural, Gregory (“Gregg”) Puchalski, BFA ’72, should have known it could change his life.

Since then, his behind-the-scenes film and television credits—most of them in Pittsburgh, where he now lives—include more than 34 productions, plus live theater jobs and TV commercials. His résumé includes productions such as Antwone Fisher, Lorenzo’s Oil, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, The Mothman Prophecies and The West Wing.

A man of many talents, he has worked as a scenic artist, sign painter, set dresser, graphic designer, billboard painter, fine artist, faux finisher and musician.

A native of Lackawanna, New York, Puchalski attended community college, then took summer classes on the UB Ridge Lea Campus from Associate Professor Emeritus of Art Paul McKenna before enrolling full time. “He encouraged me to continue, said I had what it takes and inspired me to pursue an art career,” Puchalski says. The visual communication courses, media advertising, art and photography were favorites. A billboard-sized art painting by James Rosenquist at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery was an inspiration, he says. “I was always fascinated by it; I fell in love with the style.”

When billboards painted by hand were replaced by computer technology in the early ’90s, Puchalski began learning the trade of scenic art for films and live theater. For Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he painted scenery and built new set pieces and props. “Once in a while I’d lend a hand with the puppets; Fred Rogers always did the voices.”

Two massive creations brought notoriety in Pittsburgh; the first was an Andy Warhol memorial billboard Puchalski made with four images of Warhol’s face—a pop art tribute commemorating Warhol’s death in 1987. When one image of Warhol’s face was stolen, the theft brought even more publicity. Five years later, Puchalski and an associate were ready to paint a huge sports mural on a tall building when the scaffold malfunctioned 15 stories up. Instead of the mural, they painted “Send help. No Power.” Rescue vehicles, TV crews and reporters quickly materialized.

The quick-thinking artist knows how to make a splash with a wide variety of media, including his original paintings and showings of his extensive collection of mail art (art that uses the postal system as a medium). Using the name “Powder French,” Puchalski has released five CDs of solo electronic keyboard music and recorded sound tracks for Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Story by Pat Pollock; photo of Gregg Puchalski (in front of wall he painted for a Pittsburgh ad agency) by Mark Bolster