How Pamela Joyner’s Passion for Art Books Sparked a Visionary Collection

Pamela Joyner’s formidable art collection, which she shares with her husband Alfred Giuffrida, today numbers around 600 artworks. But the eminent businesswoman and philanthropist’s art-buying journey began with an altogether different focus in mind: books.

For many years, Joyner had been an avid lover of art, growing up visiting hometown museums like the Art Institute of Chicago. Art books became a natural and accessible way to deepen this passion. “When I first started thinking about collecting art in the 1990s, I was interested in artists of the African diaspora, but there weren’t a lot of experts lingering around, so books were my experts,” she recalled.

Joyner quickly amassed a collection of tomes, poring over them as she honed her taste. “I’d tell any art lover or art buyer to collect books,” she advised. “A collection of books is as worthy a collection as one of art.”

Joyner also continued to find inspiration from museums of all kinds, a practice she compares to keeping up good hygiene. “It’s just second nature for me,” she explained. “Going to museums gets you to develop a muscle memory around visual culture and also gives you the exercise of training your eye to what is new.”

Joyner notes an early experience seeing Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86), which she called “transformational.” She visited the work at the Art Institute frequently, imagining herself strolling along the riverbank like the other figures in the painting. Although the work resonated, even at this early stage, she recognized the lack of diversity among artists in museums and the people they depict, an imbalance that would later become crucial to her collecting.

When she decided to enter the world of art collecting, Joyner did so for a practical reason. “I had empty walls to fill and wanted to surround myself with beautiful art,” she said. In addition to reading books and visiting museums, Joyner learned about the subject from artists like Richard Mayhew, who became a friend and mentor. A painting by Mayhew was among the first Joyner ever collected, and he introduced her to other artists whose work she then purchased, including Sam Gilliam, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, and William T. Williams.

Over the years, she has built a rich array of works by artists of color, in particular, abstract paintings. These fill her homes, which she jokes can shock visitors, as she and Giuffrida hang their art in dense arrangements. One of her most recent purchases is a painting by Sydney Cain, a young artist who explores the myth and history of the African diaspora through metaphysical landscapes. Joyner was drawn to a “palpable” sense of spirituality in Cain’s work.

But the more Joyner became involved with collecting, the more gaps she encountered. “About 15 or so years ago, I realized that there was a way to put my collecting to a purpose,” she explained. She began by asking herself what voices were unfairly excluded. “A lot of artists of color, especially in the 1950s to ’70s, didn’t have formal monographs of their shows, so there’s no documentation,” Joyner said. “There were pamphlets, but much of that has been lost. It was clear these are voices not fairly represented in art history.”

As a result, she took a more systematic approach. “I’m not an art historian, I’m an MBA, so I said, ‘Okay, I can do this strategically.’” Her approach to collecting thus focuses on factors such as price, medium, time period, and genre. Every time she goes through this exercise, she explained, it either becomes more refined or broadens in scope. “But I always let myself break the plan if something great comes along,” she said. “That’s an important piece of advice I’d give. If you like a plan like I do, create rules and follow them, but know that when something resonates with you, it’s worth breaking the plan.”

While her initial focus was on African American artists, Joyner’s vision has expanded to include Brazilian voices. This came as she thought deeply about the role her collection can serve in better understanding art history. “The majority of the transatlantic slave trade went through Brazil, and there are a lot of people of African descent in the nation,” she explained. “The largest Black population outside of Africa is in Brazil. I want to create a broader context with my collection, and artists of African and Brazilian descent are part of that.”

Brazilian artists Joyner has collected include Sonia Gomes, Tadáskía, and Ana Cláudia Almeida, and she attends events like the São Paulo Bienal. She also helps fund publications so that artists can remain part of the permanent art historical record long after their exhibitions close.

In addition to collecting art for her own homes, Joyner is involved with acquisition teams for several museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She and Giuffrida also pour much of their time into their residency, which they began in 2014 in Sonoma, California, before relocating it to the Nevada Museum of Art in 2021.