handling of histograms

hist(range(10))
creates a list of rectangles in ax.patches.

With the current implementation, is it possible to modify (change the label, hide, delete or change the color) of a plotted histogram in a single command ? As currently there is no histogram object, it looks like you have to change each patch individually.

Would it make sense to implement the histogram plot object as a PatchCollection rather than a list of patches ?