Pat Steir

Steir worked between 1938 and 2026 across painter, illustrator, graphic artist, installation artist and university teacher and 1 further recorded occupations. This article rests on 10 published texts, 2 digitised documents and 6 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.

Pat Steir studied at Pratt Institute. The field of work recorded is painting, visual arts and abstract painting. Residence is recorded at Greenwich Village. Work by Pat Steir is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and Tate. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Name — Pat Steir • Birth Name — Iris Patricia Sukoneck • Born — 10 April 1938 • Birthplace — Newark, New Jersey, U.S. • Died — 25 March 2026 • Place of death — New York City, U.S. • Field — Painting, printmaking • Training — Pratt Institute Boston University College of Fine Arts • Awards — Guggenheim Fellowship (1982); Pratt Institute honorary doctorate (1991); Boston University Distinguished Alumni Award (2001); Pratt Institute Alumni Achievement Award (2008)

Steir was born Iris Patricia Sukoneck in Newark, New Jersey, on April 10, 1938 to Judith and Lawrence Sukoneck, owners of a window display company. She attended the Pratt Institute in New York (1956–1958), where she was influenced by her teachers Richard Lindner and Phillip Guston, and Boston University College of Fine Arts (1958–1960). Steir returned to Pratt and earned a BFA degree in 1962.

• Illustration — Pat Steir, Nothing, oil on canvas, 1974, Honolulu Museum of Art In 1962, the year she graduated from art school, Steir was included in a group show at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1964, her work was in a show called “Drawings” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her first one-person exhibition was at the Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, in 1964. During that time, she worked in New York as an illustrator and a book designer (1962–1966). Between 1966–1969, Steir was an art director at Harper & Row publishing company, New York. Around 1970 she became friends with Sol LeWitt, Lawrence Weiner, and other conceptual artist, and she made the first of many trips to New Mexico to visit Agnes Martin. She rose to fame in the 1970s with monochromatic canvases of roses and other images that were X-ed out. The artist explained, "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."

• Illustration — Wind and Water, color soap ground aquatint with soap ground aquatint reversal, spit bite aquatint and drypoint, 1996. Steir's first museum exhibition, in 1973 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., marked the beginning of an artmaking life dense with painting exhibitions. She also made installation work (shown at Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany, in 1992). In addition she was an important printmaker. Crown Point Press began publishing her prints in 1977 and in 1983 the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, gave her a print and drawing exhibition. A print retrospective at the Cabinet des Estampes in Geneva traveled to the Tate Gallery in London, England. Steir had one-person painting exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum in 1984 and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 1987, both of which traveled to other museums, many in Europe. In the late 1980s, Steir became influenced by the artists John Cage and Agnes Martin and began producing dripped, splashed, and poured works, embracing the element of chance. The artist related this work to the 8th and 9th century Chinese Yipin "ink-splashing" painters, having studied ink splash in the harmony of nature and humanity, inspired by Tibetan philosophy. Wind and Water is an example of this phase of her work. In 1989–92 Steir began limiting her colors to monochrome. In 1995, the monograph Pat Steir was published by the American art critic Thomas McEvilley, chronicling the artist's life work up to that point. In November 1999, Steir was the subject of an Art in America cover feature, "Watercourse Way", by critic G. Roger Denson, who wrote that Steir's lyrical waterfall paintings attest to her long-standing interest in Asian art and thought, particularly the ancient Chinese philosophy of Daoism, with Steir's literal and figurative motif embodying the flow of water (or in her case, paint) down a surface. Describing Steir's 2010 installation at Sue Scott Gallery, The Nearly Endless Line, which consisted of a white line snaking around the gallery's blue-black walls, lit with blue light, Sharon Butler writes in The Brooklyn Rail, "Walking through the darkened space, observers find themselves inside Steir’s painting, where they become part of the illusion she has created with paint and light." Pat Steir said "I wanted to be a great artist, again not in slang in someone who is great. But in the fantastic, reaching the soul of other people."

In 1956, she married Merle Steir but later divorced. She later married Joost Elffers, but kept the surname Steir. She died in Manhattan, New York, on March 25, 2026, at the age of 87.

In a career spanning over fifty years, Steir exhibited at a large number of galleries and institutions, throughout the U.S. and internationally. Selected museums and institutions have held retrospectives and exhibitions of her work including: Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon (1990); the de Young Museum, San Francisco (2010-2011); and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum (2010). Silent Secret Waterfalls: The Barnes Series, Barnes Foundation, 2019. Pat Steir: Color Wheel, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2019. Her work was included in the 2024 exhibition Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

Pat Steir is recorded with the occupation installation artist. Recorded with the occupation university teacher. Recorded with the occupation illustrator. Recorded with the occupation painter. Recorded as painter, illustrator, university teacher and artist. Established in Library of Congress under n83189525. Established in RKDartists under 74993. Established in Discogs under 973142. Established in FAST under 119097.

Steir's work is included in major public collections around the world, including: Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City); Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D. C.), Tate Gallery (London), Phoenix Art Museum (Phoenix, Arizona), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,