H. Barton Wasserman, 73, of Kennett Square, a painter and patron of music and film who helped revive the art of paper-making by hand, died of heart failure April 18 at Chester County Hospital in West Chester.

For 40 years, Mr. Wasserman's work had been exhibited in the United States and abroad, including locally at shows at Tyler School of Art, the Marion Locks Gallery, and Moore College of Art. His art produced with handmade paper was frequently exhibited at Dieu Dioné Papermill in New York.

He created his abstract white works by thinly painting or bleaching cotton and linen fabric stretched on frames to achieve a transparent effect. In recent years, said his wife, Ellen Wasserman, he had started to use color and backlighting on very large works.

Mr. Wasserman was born into a wealthy family and grew up in Gladwyne. He graduated from Episcopal Academy, earned a bachelor's degreee from Yale University in 1952, and then served as a pilot in the Air Force in Korea and Japan.

After his discharge, he studied classical music and organized chamber music concerts at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia and worked briefly as a stockbroker, his father's occupation.

another student, David Lynch, who had made a short film to enter in a contest. Mr. Wasserman gave Lynch $1,000 to make a second film, which the filmmaker later said helped launch his career.

For 17 years, Mr. Wasserman worked as an artist while living on a farm in the province of Burgundy, France, and then lived in Paris, London, New York, and Santa Barbara, Calif., before moving to Coatesville in 1989.

"He had a big life," his wife said. "He fully used all the advantages he had." She said her husband was an accomplished pianist, a wine connoisseur, a gormet cook, and an avid gardener -- he was buying plants at a nursery where she worked when they met. they had been married for two years.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Wasserman is survived by sons Paul and Peter, a stepson, Ryan Schmittinger; stepdaughters Jennifer McBride and Hayley Schmittinger; his stepmother, Nancy Schmittinger; a grandson; and his former wives, Becky Hone and Julia Loving.

The funeral and burial were private.

Memorial donations may be made to the Bart Wasserman Fund, Dieu Donné Papermill, 433 Broome St., New York, N.Y. 10013