Pat Lasch (born 1944) is an American conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor.

Biography

Born in 1944 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, Lasch received her bachelor's degree from Queens College of the City University of New York. Throughout her career she has shown work in exhibitions throughout the United States. Her father was a

pastry chef A pastry chef or pâtissier (; feminine pâtissière, ) is a station chef in a professional kitchen, skilled in the making of pastries, desserts, breads and other baked goods. They are employed in large hotels, bistros, restaurants, bakeries, b ...

born in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and many of her works feature cakes as a response to his career. Part of the first generation of

feminist art The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce feminist art, art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of co ...

ists to gain prominence, she is noted for her sculptures which depict ordinary objects, such as ball gowns crafted from dried

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Dep ...

, created from unusual materials. A 1988 bronze sculpture by Lasch, ''Self-Portrait: Renaissance Woman and Her Lover'', is owned by the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

. Her work may also be found in the collections of the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

. The latter museum also once owned a wedding cake sculpture commissioned in 1979 by

Kynaston McShine Kynaston Leigh Gerard McShine (February 20, 1935 – January 8, 2018) was a Trinidadian born curator and public speaker. His visions about contemporary art made lasting contributions to the lives of countless artists and colleagues at the Museum ...

for its fiftieth anniversary, but this was discarded sometime due to irreversible deterioration of its components in the 1990s, a fact which was not disclosed to the artist until 2016. ''Journeys of the Heart'', exhibited at the Palm Springs Museum in California, surveyed 43 years of work by Pat Lasch. It featured delicate cake and pastry sculptures made from dried acrylic paint and a video of the artist at work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lasch, Pat 1944 births Living people American conceptual artists American women conceptual artists American feminist artists 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women sculptors 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American women sculptors Artists from New York City Queens College, City University of New York alumni American people of German descent Sculptors from New York (state)