About this collection:

➤ Patrick J. Sullivan was born on March 17, 1894 in Braddock, Pennsylvania to Redmond and Mary Sullivan. His father passed away when he was 2 years old, and Sullivan spent some time in an orphanage. In 1911, at the age of 16, he and his mother moved to Wheeling, WV. On March 13, 1920 he married Martha Ritter, and they later had two daughters. Through the 1920s and 1930s he was primarily employed as a house painter. His first original canvas, title "Man's Procrastinating Pastime", was painted in 1936 and mailed to the Society of Independent Artists Show in New York. It attracted the attention of Sidney Janis, a well-known art collector, who bought the painting and encouraged Sullivan to continue. Sullivan is represented in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York by two paintings. He is in the Britannica Encyclopedia of American Art and illustrations of his paintings can be found in Sidney Janis' They Taught Themselves, which devotes 23 pages to Sullivan. Sullivan died at Wheeling Hospital on August 31, 1967.

The Patrick J. Sullivan collection consists of material relating to the Oglebay Institute exhibit of Sullivan’s paintings held from April 1 – June 30, 1979. In addition to the exhibit catalog, the collection also includes clippings and newsletters, slides and negatives of Sullivan’s paintings taken by Gary Zearott.

In 1980, Sullivan was inducted into the Wheeling Hall of Fame.

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