Patricia Burnett

1920 - 2014

(News article) Patricia Hill Burnett, a portrait artist and ground-breaking feminist who traced her work and activism to childhood years in Toledo, died Monday in her Bloomfield Hills, Mich., home. She was 94.

Until a recent illness, "she was in absolutely wonderful health and having a lot of fun and seeing her friends and very active," daughter Terrill Hill Burnett said.

Ms. Burnett for many years lived in northwest Detroit, only moving to the exclusive northern suburb in 1993.

"She was a devoted Detroiter, even though she loved her Toledo heritage," her daughter said.

Ms. Burnett might be found painting in pearls or demonstrating for equal rights clad in fur. She was Miss Michigan and finished as second runner-up in the 1942 Miss America Pageant. She titled her 1995 memoir, True Colors: An Artist's Journey From Beauty Queen to Feminist.

"She was incredibly joyous and full of life," her daughter said.

Her son Barry said, "She seized the day for 94 years."

Ms. Burnett painted portraits of Detroit mayors and Michigan Supreme Court justices and women of national and international renown. Her portrait of former First Lady Betty Ford is displayed in the lobby of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor.

She organized sit-ins and protests to support women's rights. She was a founder in 1969 of the Michigan chapter of the National Organization For Women, served on the national board of NOW, and led an international conference that brought together women from 21 countries.

"But it really all started in Toledo," Ms. Burnett told Jack Lessenberry for a 1995 Blade article.

Born Sept. 5, 1920, in New York to Mimi Uline Hill and William Hill, she was an infant when her parents moved to Toledo. Her father, a descendant of Aaron Burr and a Yale graduate, left town as the marriage fell apart, and Ms. Burnett grew up on Collingwood Boulevard with her mother.

Her artistic potential was recognized early, and she studied with a private teacher before winning a four-year scholarship to the Toledo Museum of Art. Her first commission to paint a portrait came at age 14.

"Toledo had excellent schools then," Ms. Burnett said in The Blade article. "They believed in taking bright kids and encouraging them."

She started classes at the University of Toledo, but her wealthy maternal grandfather moved mother and daughter to Washington months later, and Patricia studied fine art at Goucher College in Baltimore.

She relocated again after her mother married the head of obstetrics at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Ms. Burnett entered the Miss Michigan contest on a dare from a stepbrother. After winning that title, "my mother was sure it would cause social ruin and ordered me to withdraw from the Miss America Pageant," Ms. Burnett said for the 1995 Blade article.

Ms. Burnett later studied at what became the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, which in 2009 gave her an honorary doctorate, as well as Instituto d'Allende in Mexico and Wayne State in Detroit.

In the early 1960s, she successfully fought to be admitted to the then-all-male bastion of Detroit artists, the Scarab Club.

A lifelong Republican - "She was willing to wait for the party to come around," son Barry said - she helped organize the Michigan Women's Republican Caucus.

Her husband, Harry Burnett, died in 1979. She was formerly married to the late William A. Lange and the late Robert Siler.

Survivors include her sons, William Lange and Harry "Barry" Burnett III, daughters, Terrill Hill Burnett and Hillary Burnett, and eight grandchildren.

The family will receive guests from 5-8 p.m. Jan. 12 in A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors' Vasu, Rodgers & Connell Chapel, Royal Oak, Mich.

The family suggests tributes to the College For Creative Studies in Detroit.

This story was written by Blade Staff Writer Mark Zaborney. Contact him at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.