Member PatiHillLibrary

The books in the Pati Hill Library were acquired by Arcadia University along with Pati Hill's archive in 2017.

Pati Hill (3 April 1921 – 19 September 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.