Pat Passlof

Pat Passlof (1928–2011) was born in Georgia and grew up in New York City, attending Queens College. In the summer of 1948, she studied painting with Willem de Kooning at Black Mountain College and continued to study with him privately after they returned to New York. That fall, De Kooning introduced her to Milton Resnick. She and Resnick began to live together in the mid-1950s and married in 1962.

In 1949, Passlof helped renovate the Eighth Street loft, which was the first location of “The (Artists’) Club,” attending every talk and panel. She considers this the basis of her art education, although she did complete her BFA at Cranbrook in 1951, before returning to her loft on Tenth Street. Noticing that many of her peers rarely spoke when they came to the Club, she decided to organize an alternative “Wednesday Night Club.”

In 1956, Passlof helped found the March Gallery, where she had two exhibitions and helped organize many shows of other artists, including Mark di Suvero’s first exhibition. She designed collections of artists’ poetry, called Pandemonium. In 1961 she had a solo exhibition at Dick Bellamy’s Green Gallery and participated in group shows.

Beginning in 1963, she lived and worked in the Lower East Side, in a former synagogue. Her husband, Resnick, had his own synagogue building as a live/work space. In addition, they spent time in the Shawangunk Mountain Pat Passlof in her studio on 10th Street, c. 1958.

In the 1970s, Passlof became central to the organization “Women in the Arts,” reviewing panels and lectures for its magazine. She also wrote for “Craft Horizons” and occasional reviews for Arts Magazine. In the 1960s and 70s she also showed at the Globe Gallery, the Feiner Gallery, and the Landmark Gallery. Passlof was a dedicated professor who taught at Richmond College, CUNY, from 1972 to 1983; and the College of Staten Island, CUNY from 1983 until 2010. Her philosophy of painting was communicated through her teaching, and in the form of letters to students.

In her final years, Passlof prepared for what would become the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation. Situated in what was Resnick’s home and studio, the former synagogue on Eldridge Street, the Foundation works to preserve the legacy of the artist-couple, and to present exhibitions of other painters and related arts programming.

“Painting is inconvenient. It is slow and may require a whole life.”
- Pat Passlof

About

Courtesy the Estate of Jesse A. Fernández

Selected Exhibition History

Full Biography