Collector Pamela Joyner on Purpose and Patronage

This episode, we are very lucky to speak with the visionary collector, philanthropist, and our personal art world hero, Pamela Joyner. Based in San Francisco, California, Pamela is a true champion for artists of African descent. Together with her husband Fred Giuffrida, she has built one of the world’s leading collections of  artworks by Black and African diaspora artists, including deep holdings of works by artists including Alma Thomas, Mark Bradford, Jack Whitten, and Sam Gilliam - among many others. Their collection has been the subject of several museum exhibitions, including shows at Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The collection is also documented in the beautiful book, Four Generations: The Joyner Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art. Pamela is also a distinguished and highly active philanthropist, sitting on the boards of multiple non-profit institutions, including the San Francisco MoMA, the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tate Americas foundation. She is also a founding member of the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums an organization of and for Black trustees currently serving on the boards of art museums within the United States.  Some artists discussed: