Joyce J. Scott (American, b. 1948), Multi-Color Bead Earrings

Lot Details & Additional Photographs

One in a figural design featuring purple and green beading and with black and orange bead accents (4.25 in.); and one in an abstract design featuring orange beading within an open blue beaded frame, completed with posts and push backs.

The Contemporary Art Collection of Francine & Benson Pilloff, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1948 to a family of artists, Joyce Scott is celebrated as a sculptor, weaver, printmaker and is best known for her intricate bead work. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art and her Masters of Fine Art from the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico and is a MacArthur Fellow. Her art, influenced by her family's craft traditions and her African American heritage, confronts the context of contemporary societal issues and stereotypes. Scott has said that she believes "in messing with stereotypes. It's important for me to use art in a manner that incites people to look and then carry something home, even if it's subliminal." Her work primarily uses the peyote stitch, an off-loom, free-form, glass bead weaving technique that merges beads, blown glass, and repurposed objects with "autobiographical, sociological, and political content to confront difficult subjects, while also embracing the beauty of her materials."

Her work has been exhibited in numerous museum collections, including The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, and others. The Baltimore Museum of Art holds the largest collection of her work and in 2024, along with the Seattle Art Museum, organized a fifty-year retrospective of the artist, Joyce J. Scott: Walk a Mile in My Dreams.