Passlof was an integral member of the art scene in New York for six decades; her life, career, and writing intersecting with major touchstones: from "The Club" and the cooperatives on Tenth Street, to the famed Green Gallery, the feminist art movement, to generations of students at the City University of New York.
Passlof's earliest work utilized the kinds of biomorphic forms explored also by de Kooning and Gorky; as well as the existentialist ideology which informed Abstract Expressionism.
In 1949, Passlof helped renovate the Eighth Street loft, which was the first location of "The (Artists') Club," attending every talk and panel.
Another retrospective of her work was held at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation in 2020, curated by Karen Wilkin.
[4] A painting was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, and included in its 2017 exhibition, "Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction."
In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.