Patric McCoy is a retired environmental scientist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) Regional Office in Chicago. He became a National Expert in enforcing air pollution regulations against the petroleum refining industry and was the recipient of numerous awards from the Department of Justice and the USEPA for that work. He has a BA in Chemistry from the University of Chicago (1969) and an MA in Environmental Science from Governors State University (1979). He taught chemistry and physics in the Chicago Public School system from 1969 to 1971.
Mr. McCoy has been collecting contemporary African American art for 50 years and has a collection of over 1300 pieces of fine art, 90% done by Chicago artists. In 2003 he co-founded Diasporal Rhythms a not-for-profit 501(c)3 arts organization that promotes the collection by individuals and institutions of art from the African diaspora. He leads the organization in doing that work through organizing exhibitions, seminars, studio visits and home tours of collections that showcase the artists being collected in the African American communities. In 2010 Mr. McCoy announced that he was going to establish an art trust to leave his art collection and other items from his estate to Diasporal Rhythms.
