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

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, 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 (; the French female version of the word is 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, bi ...

born in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

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

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

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. Depe ...

, 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 of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

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

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and 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 o ...

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 between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

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

Kynaston McShine Kynaston 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 of Modern Art ...

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 Women conceptual artists Feminist artists American women sculptors 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American sculptors 21st-century American women artists Artists from New York City Queens College, City University of New York alumni American people of German descent Sculptors from New York (state)