Pat Steir
Pat Steir, The New York Times, by Ike Edeani
• Born: Newark, New Jersey in 1940 • Based in New York City • Studied: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Pratt Institute, New York, 1962 • Studied at Boston University College of Fine Arts • Known for: Painting and printmaking, Conceptual art and Minimalism, New York art scene of 1970s and 1980s (friend of Louisa Chase) • Co-founder feminist journal, Heresies (with Miriam Schapiro) • Founding board member Printed Matter book shop, New York • Taught at Parsons School of Desgin, Princeton University, Hunter College
Born in 1940, in Newark, New Jersey, Pat Steir is an influential painter and printmaker known for her splashed, dripping pigment paintings on canvas and her site-specific wall drawings. Her work is influenced by Color Field painting, Abstract Expressionism, and Taoist philosophy. Interested in aesthetic degradation, she says of her work, "I wanted to destroy images as symbols... To make the image a symbol for a symbol. I had to act it out, make the image, and cross it out. No imagery, but at the same time endless imagery. Every nuance of paint texture worked as an image.”
Steir earned her BFA from the Pratt Institute, New York, in 1962, and studied with many influential Conceptual and Minimalist artists, including Sol Lewitt and Agnes Martin. In the 1980s, Steir was among the few women artists to gain recognition for her work, which included an inner circle of artists and friends Louisa Chase, Elizabeth Murray and Mary Heilman.
In 1969, Steir met Marcia Tucker, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art who introduced her to the women's movement and many fellow artists working in New York. Steir says, "I was amazed, shocked, and thrilled to find hundreds of women who felt trapped as I did by the very real limitations of society and government on women. I was struggling with my conflicts and I had no idea that other women were having the same struggles. It was simply thought that women were not qualified to be artists and thinkers. It seemed to me I had to choose between being a normal ordinary woman or an artist."
Steir has had retrospectives and exhibitions all over the world, including the Tate Gallery in London, and shows at the Brooklyn Museum and the New Museum of Contemporary Art that traveled throughout Europe. She has won numerous awards for her work, which is collected by major museums in the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. She is a founding board member of Printed Matter bookshop in New York City, and of the landmark feminist journal, Heresies, first published in 1977. Steir has also taught art at Parsons School of Design, Princeton University and Hunter College. She lives and works in New York City in Greenwich Village.