Patricia DuBose Duncan

1932 - 2021

Patricia DuBose Duncan
August 16, 1932 - September 17, 2021
Topsham, Maine - Patricia DuBose Duncan was born in Nashville, Tennessee on August 16, 1932 and died in Topsham, Maine on September 17, 2021. She was an exceptional artist in six different media and her art is in permanent collections in nine museums and numerous private collections; art that was completed in studios in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sasebo, Japan, Lake Quivira, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri and Mid Coast Maine.
Pat was especially proud of her art because of two art-related projects that she called "art with a purpose." The first project was a seven-year advocacy for creation of a National Tallgrass Prairie Park in 1972. Efforts to create a Park went back to the 1930s but had always been oriented to scientific concerns and did not have widespread public interest or public support. Her photographs of prairie flowers and fauna and prairie people added a missing element that made people appreciate the beauty of the open, natural prairie and the uniqueness of prairie culture.
The first step in realizing the goal of a National Tallgrass Prairie Park was in 1996 when the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve was dedicated, just north of Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. Pat was singled out at the dedication for her part in making that happen. Her other art with a purpose project was initiating and designing a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition, The Tallgrass Prairie: An American Landscape. There were three copies of the 40 oak-framed panels that illustrated The Historic Prairie and The Prairie Today and were exhibited in public buildings in all fifty states for ten years, from the Bi-Centennial year 1976 to 1986. The "art with a purpose" projects were the basis for he recognition as a Distinguished Alumni of her Alma Mater, Washington University in St. Louis in 1979. She was the first graduate of the University's School of Fine Arts to receive that honor.
Pat lived in Sasebo, Japan in 1956 and 1957 with her husband Herb when he was serving a 39-month Korean War draft requirement as an officer in the United States Navy. The beauty and simplicity of life in rural Japan had a lifelong influence on pat and her art. The Navy years were followed by the Prairie years and then by years with concurrent studios in Kansas City, Missouri and Mid Coast Maine. She related the ocean waves on the coast of Maine to the south wind blowing Tallgrass in the Kansas prairie and had a second career painting ocean scenes and the forests of that state.
Pat was and exceptional wife and mother and is much missed by her husband of 67 years, Herb Duncan Jr., her brother Bob DuBose and his wife Georgia, sons David Duncan and Donald Duncan, her grandchildren Sander Duncan, Alanna Duncan, Charlotte Duncan, Danielle Duncan, Alex Duncan and five-month-old great-grandchild James Duncan who continues the Duncan line that began in Scotland a long time ago.