BIOGRAPHY

Throughout his career as one of America’s most revered bronze sculptors, Tony Paterson (1934-2022) celebrated humanity by skillfully portraying all aspects of the human form. His work expresses universality, combining European Classicism with the mysteries of ancient Mexican-Mayan cultures, presenting a unique vision of the modern human condition.

Paterson's work has been widely displayed nationally and internationally. As well as being exhibited in one-man shows, his work has been shown in numerous group exhibits, the most recent being “The American Way” at the Mobile Museum of Art. He has won national awards and honors, including those from the annual North American Sculpture Exhibition and the National Academy of Design. Among the commissions he has completed are portraits of Samuel Adler, Seymour H. Knox II, Charles Darwin, and Gregory Jarvis, the astronaut. His work is represented at the Eastman School of Music, the Juilliard School, the Rose Art Museum, the University of Pittsburgh, the University at Buffalo, and in many public and private collections.

Paterson was a professor at the University at Buffalo for over thirty years and was awarded Professor Emeritus status in 2002. As head of the sculpture department, he created and supervised one of the largest university sculpture foundries in America. During his later years at the university, he added the Casting and Welding Institute. Through that institute, he directed the move to restore and preserve three monumental friezes by Buffalo native Charles Cary Rumsey.

Born in Albany, New York, Paterson first studied at the Albany Institute of History and Art. At sixteen, he hitchhiked to Mexico, attracted by the Mexican muralists, where he explored mural painting and sculpture at the University of Guadalajara. Inspired by three-dimensional expression and Pre Columbian art, he pursued the field of sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Paterson was awarded a Traveling Scholarship and traveled to Paris, where he perfected his drawing skills. He then traveled to Italy, Germany, and Spain, creating several sculptures and drawings that would later be exhibited nationally and internationally. On his return from Europe, Paterson studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, refining his skills in welding. As a MacDowell Colony Fellow, he explored the medium of stone and how it relates to his sculptural vision. After several years, he received a post-graduate fellowship from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and traveled to Italy and Greece to study the classic masterpieces from that part of the world. Having been granted a teaching sabbatical from the University at Buffalo in 1998, he traveled on a thirty-two thousand-mile trip through Central and North America. Here, he deeply explored Native and Pre-Columbian art and the culture of that region.

Tony Paterson is survived by his wife, Eleanor Paterson, a lifelong educator and noted American painter, and his two sons, Robert Paterson, an award-winning composer and conductor, and David Paterson, a public school teacher, and flutist.