Pati Hill Collection

Pati Hill (1921 – 2014) was a writer and artist best known for her wry, observational prose and her work with the photocopier, which she referred to as a “found instrument, a saxophone without directions.”¹ Hill’s work is distinguished by its focus on objects, her emphasis on the accessibility of xerography and her efforts to unite the visual and literary arts.

The Pati Hill Collection at Arcadia University is the most comprehensive archive of Hill’s artworks, objects, manuscripts, documentation and personal papers. Spanning nearly 70 years of her hybrid practice, the collection offers insight into a pivotal moment in 20th-century culture when artists imagined a future where international audiences could be addressed instantaneously, where the reality of the photographic image would be undermined, and—in Hill’s words—where image and text would “fuse to become something other than either.”² Scholars and curators interested in visiting the archive should contact rousseaua@arcadia.edu.

Copiers bring artists and writers together. Copies are an international visual language, which talks to people in Los Angeles and people in Prague the same way. Making copies is very near to speaking. – Pati Hill 

Pati Hill (April 3, 1921 – September 19, 2014) is regarded as one of the most prolific artists to explore the photocopier, which she considered both a muse and collaborator. Initially, she gave primary credit to the copier as the “artist,” declaring that her role was secondary. Unlike most who flirted with the process, she continued to explore and advocate for xerography for 40 years, making her loyalty to the medium unmatched. While Hill was not the first to explore the image-making possibilities of the photocopier, her literal approach to the medium – “having come to copying from writing”³ – coupled with her lucid texts about it, have proved prescient.

Her best known writings include a memoir, The Pit and The Century Plant (New York: Harper, 1955); The Nine Mile Circle (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1957); Prosper (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1960); One Thing I Know (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962); The Snow Rabbit (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), a book of poetry illustrated by Galway Kinnell; Impossible Dreams (Cambridge: Alice James Books, 1976) illustrated with Hill’s photocopies of photographs by Robert Doisneau, Ralph Gibson, Eva Rubinstein, and Willi Ronis; and Letters to Jill: a catalogue and some notes on copying (New York: Kornblee and Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1979).

Her correspondence reflects her insights into the changing nature of art in the 20th century, as she engaged in thoughtful and incisive discussions with major contemporary figures including photographer Diane Arbus, designer Charles Eames, editor-author George Plimpton, and poets James Merrill and Galway Kinnell. Hill became an important part of the post-war expatriate artistic community in France centered around the Paris Review (a frequent publisher of her short stories), led by George Plimpton, Peter Matthiessen, Jean Stein, and Donald Hall.

Hill’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Princeton University Art Museum, the Bayly Art Museum at the University of Virginia, the Cabinet des Estampes at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and the Musée de Sens in Sens-en-Bourgogne.

In 2016, Arcadia University Art Gallery (now Arcadia Exhibitions) presented “Pati Hill: Photocopier–A Survey of Prints and Books (1974-83)”, curated by Richard Torchia and supported by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. The culmination of this exhibition and its accompanying programming and publication – facilitated by a productive partnership between Hill, her estate, and Arcadia – led to the gift of Hill’s art and papers to the University to preserve and cultivate in perpetuity. Thanks to a generous donation from Dorothy Lichtenstein, a friend of Hill’s, as well as a former Beaver College student, the collection was transported from France to Glenside in the fall of 2017.

Arcadia University Art Gallery hosted an opening reception for the exhibit Pati Hill: Photocopier, A Survey of Prints and Books (1974–83) on Thursday, February 25. The exhibit, featured in 3 galleries across the Glenside campus, is open until April 24.

¹ Pati Hill, Letters to Jill: A catalogue and some notes on copying, (New York: Kornblee Gallery, 1979), 117.
² Lee Price (Director of Development, Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, Philadelphia); Pati Hill, Letters to Jill, 121.
³ Pati Hill, Letters to Jill, 106.