Painter and printmaker Patrick Surgalski was born in Michigan in 1953. He attended the Cranbrook Academy of Fine Arts in Detroit, where he received his BFA and later taught printmaking. Surgalski established himself as an Abstract artist in Bay Area beginning in the 1980s, often working collaboratively with Beat poets such as Nils Peterson and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, incorporating their words onto the sheets of his lithographs and etchings. He is currently associate professor of printmaking and drawing at San Jose State University. He has worked as a master printer at Smith Andersen Editions and Mantissa Press. His workd can be found in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Exhibitions include Condeso/Lawler Gallery, NY (1994); "Left to Chance: In Search of the Accidental Book Art," San Francisco Center for the Book (2012); the Triton Museum of Art (2013); among others.