Tom Patti
“When I was a kid General Electric was in my backyard. They were experimenting with man-made lightning and I went to the building where they were doing the test. When I saw it for the first time I knew what I was looking for – that mystery event of discovery between science and creativity…” —Tom Patti
TomPatti
Honored as a Pratt Icon, Tom Patti has received international attention for a body of work comprising visionary architectural systems—both small scale sculptural glass works and large scale public commissions. Exhibited and published internationally, his work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art in Washington D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, and others worldwide. An artist, designer, and materials innovator, Patti has received numerous awards for his work on projects using high performance glass and plastics, collaborating with such architects and engineers as Cesar Pelli, Graham Gund, FX Fowle, Arquitectonica and Buro Happold; and has served as technical consultant on glass design for Corning, Owens Corning, PPG, Pilkington and Tesla.
Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1943, Patti left the Berkshires in the early 1960s to pursue a BFA and MFA at Pratt Art Institute in Industrial Design and Architectural Theory. During that time he was involved with Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a project co-founded by Robert Rauschenberg to develop collaborations between artists and engineers to explore the relationship of art to science and technology. Establishing this investigation as a predominant theme in his work, Patti has continued to innovate architectural and industrial glass processes entirely unique to his artwork over the past four decades.
Today his works are synonymous with an aesthetic subtlety and mystical perfection that transcends the medium, making him a leader in the field of art and high performance glass technology.
From Artist's website
