Patricia 'Pat' de Groot of Provincetown, a noted painter, died Thursday, July 26 at Maplewood of Brewster. She was 88. Born Patricia Richardson, she was the widow of the late Nanno de Groot.
Pat was born in London to Ernald Richardson and Evelyn Weil (a granddaughter of Isidor Straus, co-owner of Macy’s, who died on the Titanic), and was sent to the U.S. at the age of 10. In her 20s she worked at the Paris Review, and then designed book covers for Random House and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in New York.
But it was in Provincetown that Pat made her mark. She met the painter Nanno de Groot in the late 1950s, and it changed everything. They married in 1958, when she was 28 years old, and the couple bought land on Commercial Street. She and Nanno then designed the perfect artists’ house, which over the years, became a center of artistic activity.
After Nanno’s death, de Groot wanted to bury him in the backyard, but the town wouldn’t let her. She carved a marble, abstract sculpture of a women with arms encircled over her head for his tombstone, which dances above his grave in the Provincetown Cemetery. She was buried beside him in a private ceremony on Monday, July 30th.
Following Nanno’s death, de Groot became a painter in her own right. She began drawing in 1974, and then made paintings that often depicted the horizon and the weather she watched from her home studio. She took a drawing pad with her out in a kayak, where a human-friendly whale once swam beside her. That was the vantage point from which she sketched her famous cormorants. She also practiced karate, was an award-winning tuna fisherman who appeared in Sports Illustrated magazine after hauling a huge tuna onto Charles Mayo’s boat, and played the drums with the man she called her “last boyfriend,” Elvin Jones, a John Coltrane drummer.
She was the president of the board at the Fine Arts Work Center in 1992, when she became friends with former writing fellow John Skoyles, who was named executive director. He thinks de Groot was the FAWC’s board president from 1992 to 1994, “but nobody knows” how many years she served. De Groot often said she was proud of pushing the work center to admit artists of color.
De Groot is survived by her brother, Peter Richardson, and by a niece and nephew. Though she didn’t have children of her own, she became a second mother to Jocko Jorrín and Justina Jorrín Barnard.
Bass player, Jocko Jorrín will play a Pat de Groot tribute show with his New York-based band, Blue Savages, from 10 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, Aug. 11, at Bubala’s by the Bay, 185 Commercial St. They will be joined by Pat’s long-time friend, the mandolin player Ted Lucas.
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum will hold a memorial service later; details to be announced.