Pat De Groot

Pat de Groot (1930–2018) was a British-born American artist best known for her intimate horizon paintings of Provincetown Harbor. Working primarily in small-scale oil on board, she painted the view from her studio window for decades, capturing subtle shifts of light, weather, and atmosphere. Using a palette knife, she shaped the sea and sky into simple, horizontal bands of color, capturing shifts in light and depth. Rather than depicting waves or clouds in detail, she focused on the subtle interplay of color, horizon, and perspective. After studying at the University of Pennsylvania, de Groot began her career as an award-winning book designer in New York, creating covers for major publishers including Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Random House. In 1963 she settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the coastal environment became central to her practice. Earlier series of ink drawings of seabirds, informed by her interest in Zen philosophy and East Asian art, refined her acute observational approach.

De Groot’s first solo exhibition was held at New York’s Pat Hearn Gallery, and in Provincetown, de Groot showed at Albert Merola Gallery. Her work  has also been exhibited at Provincetown Art Association and Museum.