The G. William Patten papers contain artwork, architectural drawings, blueprints, correspondence, exhibition catalogs, clippings, notes, photographs, publications, sketchbooks, writings, and speeches documenting Patten’s career as a monument designer and artist. Patten designed war memorials, headstones, and advertising materials for the funerary monument company Cook, Watkins, and Patch, and his sketches, product sheets, and pamphlets for them form a large part of this collection. There are also a substantial number of architectural drawings for the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., for which Patten designed statuary and carvings in several chapels as a subcontractor to Lualdi, Inc. Patten designed furnishings for other chapels for Lualdi, including the Boston College High School chapel, detailed by photographs and drawings in the papers.

Patten’s commercial artworks include lettering, engineering schematics, and product illustrations. Of particular interest is his work for Vought Corporation aircraft company during World War II, which consists of engineering schematics, sketches, prints, and pamphlets for the Corsair fighter aircraft. In addition to his commissioned work as a monument designer and commercial artist, Patten created personal artwork, including pen and ink and pencil sketches, watercolor paintings, oil pastel portraits, and etchings. These range from early student works (exercises and copies of famous artworks) to later original pieces. Architecture, Boston and its environs, and life drawing are the subjects best represented. A large bound sketchbook contains artworks of many various subjects from all phases of Patten’s life, and also includes clippings and examples of his professional work.

Patten had a strong interest in iconography and symbolism and kept a series of notebooks on those topics. In addition, there are subject files consisting of clippings and reference images, mostly on religious art. A small amount of biographical material in the subject files includes clippings, an exhibition catalog, and educational certificates. In the mid-1970s, Patten took several trips to Egypt with his second wife, Susan, and materials on Egypt and the trips are also found in the subject files. Correspondence in the collection is brief and mainly relates to Patten’s correspondence courses in art. There are a small number of architectural reference photographs and photographs of Patten’s acquaintances.