Fund for African American Art Transforming Brooklyn Museum’s Holdings, Will Honor Collector Pamela J. Joyner at Annual Benefit

THE FUND FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN ART at the Brooklyn Museum is honoring collector Pamela J. Joyner at its annual benefit March 16. The fund concentrates on gifts and purchases of pre-1945 works by important African American artists. Recent acquisitions include “Woman with Bouquet” (circa 1940) by Laura Wheeler Waring, Beauford Delaney’s 1945 “Untitled (Fang, Crow and Fruit)” (above), and “Untitled (Head)” (circa 1930) by Nancy Elizabeth Prophet. All three works are currently on view in the American Art Galleries on the fifth floor of the museum.

According to the museum, the initiative has transformed its 19th and 20th century holdings, which now outpace other local institutions: “The Fund enables the Brooklyn Museum to represent the depth of African American artistic practice over the course of two centuries more fully and permanently than any other New York museum.”

“The Fund enables the Brooklyn Museum to represent the depth of African American artistic practice over the course of two centuries more fully and permanently than any other New York museum.”

With works dating since the 1940s, Joyner’s private collection rivals the holdings of public institutions. She has assembled what is widely regarding as one of the most significant collections of art by African and African Diasporan artists, including Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Alma Thomas, Richard Mayhew, Edward Clark, Charles Gaines, Mark Bradford, Glenn Ligon, Lorna Simpson, and Samuel Levi Jones.

The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, features more than 300 works by about 100 artists and is documented in the recently published volume “Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art.”

In September, “Solidary and Solitary,” an exhibition of the collection opens at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. The show is scheduled to travel to four additional venues through 2020—the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana; the Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in California.

A veteran of the financial investment industry, San Francisco-based Joyner is the founder of Avid Partners LLC. Last month, she was appointed to the J. Paul Getty Trust board of trustees.

Benefitting the Fund for African American Art, this year’s Brooklyn Museum fete includes a compelling public program, along with a reception and dinner honoring Joyner. The programming will feature a series of one-on-one conversations with artists Simone Leigh, Hugo McCloud, Julie Mehretu, and Jack Whitten. Each contemporary artist will discuss an African American artist from a previous generation who has influenced their practice. Rujeko Hockley is conducting the one-on-ones. Formerly an assistant curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum, Hockley recently joined the Whitney Museum of American Art as assistant curator.

NANCY ELIZABETH PROPHET, “Untitled (Head),” circa 1930 (wood). | Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art in honor of Saundra Williams-Cornwell

Since 2010, the fund has enabled the acquisition of nearly 20 works of African American art:

Sargent Claude Johnson (1888-1967).
“Untitled (Standing Woman),” circa 1933-1935 (terra cotta, painted pale tan). 2010.2

John Biggers (1924-2001).
“Web of Life,” 1958 (tempera on wood). 2011.50

Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998)
“Dans un Café à Paris (Leigh Whipper),” 1939 (oil on canvas). 2012.1

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890-1960)
“Untitled (Head),” circa 1930 (wood). 2014.3

Beauford Delaney 1901-1979
“Untitled (Fang, Crow and Fruit),” 1945 (oil on canvas). 2014.73

Robert Scott Duncanson American, 1821-1872
Copy after Thomas Cole’s “Dream of Arcadia,” 1852 (oil on canvas). L2011.4.1

Charles Ethan Porter 1847-1923
“Still Life with Fruit Basket,” 1878 (oil on canvas). L2011.4.2

Norman Lewis 1909-1979
“Untitled,” 1944 (graphite, ink, and gouache on paper). 2010.81

Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-1901
“Untitled,” circa 1885 (pastel on paper). 2011.1.1

Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-19
“Untitled,” circa 1885 (pastel on paper). 2011.1.2

Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-1901
“Untitled,” circa 1885 (pastel on paper). 2011.1.3

Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-19014
“Untitled,” circa 1885 (pastel on paper). 2011.1

Edward Mitchell Bannister 1828-1901
“Untitled,” circa 1885 (pastel on paper). 2011.1.5

Hale Woodruff 1900-1980
“Rocky Mountain Landscape I,” circa 1936 (watercolor on paper). 2011.29.1

Hale Woodruff 1900-1980
“Rocky Mountain Landscape II,” circa 1936 (watercolor on paper). 2011.29.2

Grafton Tyler Brown 1841-1918
“View of Yosemite Valley,” 1886 (oil on canvas). 2012.92

Charles W. White 1918-1979
“Jessica,” 1970 (etching). 2011.52

Laura Wheeler Waring (1887-1948)
“Woman with Bouquet,” 1940 (oil on canvas). 2016.2
CT

IMAGES: Top, Beauford Delaney, “Untitled (Fang, Crow and Fruit),” 1945 (oil on canvas). | Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art in honor of Arnold Lehman, A. Augustus Healy Fund and Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund, © artist or artist’s estate, Courtesy Brooklyn Museum. 2014.73. Top right, Pamela J. Joyner. Photo by Linda Nylind, Courtesy Brooklyn Museum

LOIS MAILOU JONES (1905-1998), “Dans un Café à Paris (Leigh Whipper),” 1939 (oil on canvas). | Brooklyn Museum Fund for African American Art and gift of Auldlyn Higgins Williams and E.T. Williams, Jr. 2012.1