An Incredible Evening with Patrick Diamond

Join us for an evening with the author of The Incredible Joy of Art Collecting: My Journey from Frog Town, SC to the National Gallery, a memoir by Patrick Diamond.

The publication speaks to the author's life growing up poor to becoming a collector of African American art from around the world. Diamond writes about an environment where Jim Crow laws and segregation limited opportunities due to social, political, and cultural inequities. He shares the personal experiences that encouraged his love of art beginning with his grandmother and extending to him and his wife supporting and celebrating African American artists.

The author will discuss what he and his wife Judy learned over the course of four decades of collecting art, followed by a question and answer session.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Incredible Joy of Art Collecting: My Journey from Frog Town, SC to the National Gallery is a unique and multi-layered debut memoir regarding the tremendous impact of a grandmother's love and how art can educate a young child about one's own history and culture. The book is an engaging story of a 5-year-old child, born into abject poverty and the South's suffocating racial segregation of the 1950's, who is introduced to the deep beauty and cultural richness of African American Art. The author's lifelong passion for the art he came to love as a child leads him and his wife on a 46-year cultural journey acquiring museum quality artwork and befriending some of our country's most well-known and admired African American artists. Artwork from Patrick and Judy's collection has been exhibited in renowned museums across the country and is beautifully highlighted in this paperback edition.

For more than 46 years, Patrick Diamond and his wife Judy have collected over 120 images from a diverse list of artists including Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jonathan Green and Jacob Lawrence. He lives in Charlotte, NC, and is a former Development Director of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture.