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Biographical history
Nancy-Lou Patterson was a Canadian artist, writer, and curator, who founded the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo. The daughter of academic parents, Nancy-Lou Patterson was born in 1929 in Worcester, Mass. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Washington in 1951, afterwards working for two years as a scientific illustrator at the University of Kansas and at the Smithsonian and then for nine years as a lecturer at Seattle University.
In 1962 she moved to the Waterloo Region with her husband, Dr. E Palmer Patterson, who was to teach at the University of Waterloo. In addition to her position as Director of Art and Curator of the University's art gallery, in 1966 Professor Patterson taught the University of Waterloo's first Fine Arts course, and in 1968 she founded the Department of Fine Arts, twice serving as Department Chair.
As a scholar Nancy-Lou Patterson is well known for her writings in the area of mythopoeic art and literature, with particular focus on the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, Charles Williams and Dorothy L. Sayers. She has written extensively on the traditional arts of Swiss German and Dutch-German Mennonites of Waterloo County, and also on the art of Native Canadians. Her work includes both book and exhibition reviews, and exhibition catalogues. She has published both poetry and fiction, including her three novels Apple Staff and Silver Crown (1985), The Painted Hallway (1992), and Barricade Summer (1996). Nancy-Lou Patterson's artistic career began in 1953 when she created a mural for an Anglican Church in Kansas, and includes a series of stained glass windows designed in 1964 for Conrad Grebel Chapel at the University of Waterloo. Her liturgical commissions have involved work in textiles, stained glass, wood, metal, terra cotta, and calligraphy.
In 1993 Nancy-Lou Patterson was named "Distinguished Professor Emerita" by the University of Waterloo, and in the same year received an honorary doctor of letters degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in recognition of "a life dedicated to expression."
Patterson died in Kitchener on October 15, 2018.
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Scope and content
Contains clippings, correspondence, forms, ephemera, handwritten notes, a press release, and 17 col. snapshots re an exhibition entitled "Nancy-Lou Patterson: The Canadian years 1962-1995" which took place in 1995 at the Homer Watson House & Gallery. Also includes typed and handwritten title cards produced for items displayed in this exhibition, as well as handwritten and typed documents including a biographical sketch and the artist's statement produced for this exhibition.
Other items contained in this file include the contract drawn up between Nancy-Lou Patterson and the Homer Watson House & Gallery for the purposes of this exhibition, as well as handwritten and typed lists of the pieces to be displayed. Also includes 2 4 p. phtocopied handwritten lists of selected works installed in architectural settings by Nancy-Lou Patterson, and a 7 p. original typed list of the exhibitions in which the artist has participated in Canada in the period 1963-1995.
This file also contains biographical clippings about Nancy-Lou Patterson from 1963 and 1990. Also includes clippings, correspondence, ephemera, handwritten notes, and photocopied tss. re an exhibition entitled "Puppet Play and Phantasy" which took place at the Homer Watson House in 1987. Illustrations by Nancy-Lou Patterson from Apple Staff and Silver Crown were displayed in this exhibition.
Finally, this file contains a photocopy of a news release issued by the Homer Watson House & Gallery and photocopied clippings all of which relate to the Doon School of Fine Arts. This file also includes a photocopy of a document featuring information on the Summer School of the Doon School of Fine Arts
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English