Art

Item Description

Patricia Buckley was born on May 20th, 1933, in the Richmond Borough of New York City. She was the second of three children of an Irish American/Sicilian marriage. In grade school, young Patricia was perceived as a poor student, a circumstance probably attributable to dyslexia which is a generally misunderstood reading and perceptional "disorder". Nonetheless, one of her teachers determined that this little girl who was "Not Proficient In Anything" was artistically gifted. This outside opinion helped to convince Pat's mother to enroll her daughter in an extraordinary public school for girls in downtown Manhattan: the Washington Irving High School for the Fine Arts. It was there, in what obviously was a friendly learning environment, that Pat's artistic abilities were finally encouraged and seriously nourished.

In 1951 Pat received a scholarship to New York's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She studied at this prestigious art school for four years and specialized in fine arts and graphic design. Soon after leaving school she married Jack Moss, a chemical engineer.

In 1964, Pat's husband's work took his family, by then five children with a sixth child on the way to Waynesboro in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It was here that she came to appreciate the quiet beauty of rural scenery and to know the picturesque and deeply religious Amish and Mennonite "plain" people. Soon, she was incorporating these new elements into her art creating an impetus that revitalized her artistic career and reignited her ambitions.

In 1967 she won her first major art show prize, a one-person museum exhibition. This exhibition was a "sellout", and the success encouraged her to start seriously marketing her work. The uniqueness of her style and the warmth generated by her subject matter quickly won her wide spread recognition.

Today, thousands of collectors in the United States, Europe, and Japan have come to recognize, appreciate, and treasure Pat Moss' art with its distinctive look and its great popular appeal. Although she now enjoys tremendous artistic success, Pat Moss has become almost equally well-known for her dedicated work with special education groups and her generous donations to children-related charities.