Patrick Pye was born in England but grew up in Dublin. He started painting in 1943 under the sculptor Oisín Kelly, and later studied at the National College of Art. In 1957 he won the Mainie Jellett Scholarship, which enabled him to travel extensively in Europe. It was while on a visit to the National Museum in Barcelona that he became influenced by Romanesque Catalan art, and this turned his attention to Christian iconography. He also studied stained glass at the Jan Van Eyck Academy in Holland under Albert Troost.

Pye has completed many major commissions on religious themes, including those at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick; Church of the Resurrection, Belfast; Convent of Mercy, Cookstown, Co Tyrone; and Fossa chapel, Killarney. A triptych illustrating man´s expulsion from the Garden of Eden hangs at Bank of Ireland headquarters on Baggot Street in Dublin, and he made the Stations of the Cross for Ballycasheen church in Killarney.

In 1997 the Royal Hibernian Academy held a retrospective of his work, Triptychs and Icons. In 2005 Pye was awarded a D.Phil by Maynooth University.

He is a founding member of Aosdána, of which he became a member in 1981. He lives and works in Dublin.

— JOB