Pat Steir: Untitled

 Pat Steir (b. 1938) is an American painter and printmaker best known for her

abstract dripped, splashed and poured “Waterfall” paintings she has described

as “paintings of nothing.” However, ratherthan wholly abandoning the execution

of her paintings to external elements and factors, Steir exercises rigorous

control over her technique. This studied and deliberate release of control as an

artistic method developed through her study of Japanese and Chinese painting.

Steir is deeply inspired by Taoism and Buddhism, and her working methods

transcend the divide between figuration and abstraction. She seeks to both

portray and evoke a state of mind: rather than representing the sublimity of a

waterfall or seascape, Steir’s paintings become charged spaces of transcendental content. moCa featured Steir’s work as part of 1983-84’s Art at Progressive: Prints from a Corporate Collection. This print was created on the occasion of Steir’s 2010 installation at CAC Cincinnati.

Steir was born in Newark, NJ and lives and works in New York, NY. She attended the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and Boston University College of Fine Arts, earning a BFA from Pratt in 1962. For more than five decades, Steir has exhibited extensively at national and international museums. She is a founding board member of Printed Matter bookshop in New York, and of the landmark feminist journal, Heresies, first published in 1977. Along with lecturing at

numerous museums and universities, Steiris the recipient of several awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1982), as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1976, 1973). In 1991, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art from the Pratt Institute and, in 2001, received the Boston University School for the Arts Distinguished Alumni Award.