Phil Patton | |
|---|---|
_Patton%2c_2004.jpg) Patton in 2004 | |
| Born | Lewis Foster Patton (1952-03-23)March 23, 1952 Durham, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | September 22, 2015(2015-09-22) (aged 63) Wayne, New Jersey, U.S.[1] |
| Occupation | Author, journalist, critic, teacher, freelance writer |
| Genre | History, Culture, Technology, Design and Automotive journalism |
| Spouse | [2] |
| Website | |
| philpatton | |
Phil Patton (March 23, 1952 – September 22, 2015)[1] was an American freelance journalist, book author, teacher, editor, and design and curatorial consultant,[3][4] widely known for his sense of curiosity and his focus on design, technology, culture, history—and, extensively, automotive subjects.[5][2]
Described as adesign guru,[2] Patton's reportage and essays were regularly carried by a host of news outlets, magazines and online media, fromWired[6] andEsquire[7] toI.D. magazine.[8] He served as commentator onPBS,the History Channel,NBC Today,CBS Sunday Morning, andThe Charlie Rose Show.[9] He authored books on subjects ranging from the American highway system to the inter-relationship of television and professional football—and co-authored a book on everyday objects with the design team of star-architectMichael Graves. He taught design classes at numerous schools, including at New York'sSchool of Visual Arts, urging his students "to look".[10]
Patton was known for parsing the details of a seemingly insignificant design element and then extrapolating its relationship to humanity at large, identifying what theNew York Times called the "deeper cultural messages".[2] In 1996, he authored an essay on polystyrene coffee lids,[11][12] detailing "how intensely designed they were"[2] and noting how the lids reveal the "whole vast machinery of modern culture".[2] ForCar and Driver, he wroteIn Praise of Knobs, examining the nature of touch as a human sense, the nature of microscopic nerve behaviors, and the science ofhaptic feedback—learning thatAudi's haptics engineers inIngolstadt studied the sound of their dashboard switches to develop "the Audi Click".[13] For theNew York Times, he wrote aboutPrada's 2012 Spring/Summer 2012 collection, with shoes featuring distinctly automotive tailfins.[10]
Writing for theLos Angeles Times, automotive journalistDan Neil called Patton's 2004 book,Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile, "effortlessly smart and entertaining", in an industry of "authors who can take the lively subject of the automobile and inject it with Thorazine."[14] Noted graphic designer and writer,Roger Black, said Patton "taught theNew York Times to cover design. The domino effect: the rest of the media followed."[15] Writing for theCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Molly F. Heintz said "from a single object, [Patton] could unfold a universe."[10]
Lewis Foster Patton was born inDurham, North Carolina, and was given his life-long nickname,Phil, after the airman who saved his father's life inWorld War II.[16][2] He was the son of Lewis Weimar Patton, an Air Force bombardier in theUS Army Air Corps andPurple Heart recipient,[17] severely injured in a bombing raid over Japan,[18] and Mildred Wilson (née Dwyer) Patton,[19] a bibliophile who passed her love of books to her son,[2][5] and in whose honor the Mildred Dwyer Patton Award was presented annually by the Raleigh Fine Arts Society. He had one brother, David.[20]
Having grown up at an airbase in Florida and in North Carolina, Patton graduated fromNeedham B. Broughton High School in Raleigh in 1970,[9] later attendingHarvard University where he was an arts editor ofThe Harvard Crimson,[21] graduating in 1974 with a degree in English and history. He moved to New York City, graduated fromColumbia University with a masters degree in comparative literature, and briefly worked as a fact-checker forEsquire and as editor ofSky Magazine, the now defunct in-flight magazine ofDelta Airlines.[2]
A member of theInternational Motor Press Association (IMPA),[22] anOverall Best Story writing award was presented annually in Patton's honor by the Raleigh Fine Arts Society.[23] An extensive collector, he curated a personal assemblage of antique cameras includingKodak Brownies andPolaroids. As a professional writer, he favored anOlympusSLR.[24] Recognizing his seminalI.D. magazine article on the design of coffee cup lids, theCincinnati Art Museum featured his collection of the lids in an exhibit entitledCaution: Contents Hot (2007).[25]
Patton and his first wife, Joelle Delbourgo, had two children, Caroline and Andrew. He lived inMontclair andWoodland Park, New Jersey, for most of his career.[9] His second wife was Kathleen Hamilton, a former editor withAutomobile Magazine andAutomotive News.[26]
Patton died in September, 2015 at age 63 of pneumonia, as a complication ofemphysema.[9]
The New York Times carried Patton's reportage as well as his humor writing,[2] found in articles published over decades. He created the "Public Eye" design column and contributed to "Design Notebook", "Automobiles", "Wheels", "Style", "New York Times Magazine" and other sections. As a contributing editor forEsquire, he authored "Design" and "Living Quarters" columns. He was a regular reviewer forArtforum[27] and a contributing editor forWired,Departures[28] andI.D. magazine,[29]
Patton's freelance work was published across diverse publications includingAmerican Heritage,[30]Architectural Digest,[31]Art in America,ARTnews,[32]AutoWeek,[33]Automobile,[34]Car and Driver,Condé Nast Traveler,Connoisseur,Core 77,[35] Design Applause,Design Observer,[36]Dwell,[34] Esquire Japan,[37]Geo,[34]Harper's Bazaar,Inc., Interiors, Manhattan,Men's Journal,Metropolis,[38]The New Republic,New York,Omni,Seven Days, Smithsonian,[39]Travel + Leisure,Vogue,The Washington Post Book World andThe Village Voice.[40]
Patton authored or contributed to more than 30 books and exhibit catalogs,[41] most notably:
Patton was among the earliest faculty members of New York'sSchool of Visual Arts Design Criticism program, where his coffee cup lids and literary collection is archived.[43][44]
A frequent speaker at museums and design conferences, Patton often served as nominator and juror for programs including theChrysler Design Award andEyesOn Design. He spoke and presented at the International Design Conference in Aspen; theIndustrial Designers Society of America International Conference; ACD Living Surfaces; Knoll Cranbrook Design Conferences; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;Wolfsonian-FIU museum in Miami;Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.[45]
He was a regular commentator onCBS News and helped develop and appeared on a number of television series, notablyDivided Highways,[46] on the Interstate highway system (PBS);The Autobahn (History Channel, 2000).[47]
Patton wrote catalogs and essays for exhibitions at museums around the United States, includingSurrounding Interiors: Views Inside the Car at theDavis Museum and Cultural Center of Wellesley College as well as at theFrederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota (2002–2003);[48]Glamour: Fashion, Industrial Design, Architecture at theSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2004);[49]SAFE: Design Takes On Risk at the Museum of Modern Art (2005);[50]Curves of Steel: Streamlined Automobile Design at thePhoenix Art Museum (2007);[51] andOn the Job: Design and the American Office at theNational Building Museum in Washington, D.C. (2018).[52]
He served as editorial consultant forThe Art of the Motorcycle at theSolomon R. Guggeheim Museum (1998);[53] curatorial consultant forDifferent Roads: Automobiles for the Next Century at theMuseum of Modern Art (1999);[54] and consultant forBlobjects and Beyond: The New Fluidity in Design at theSan Jose Museum of Art (2005).[55]
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