About

Mayer supported herself as an artist in Manhattan in the 1950s and in 1960 exhibited as Joyce Harris, with Horizon Gallery in Greenwich Village and with the National Arts Club in 1966.  In 1969 she became Joyce Harris Mayer.  She and her husband Bernard welcomed their son Robert into the world two years later.

   In 1974 Mayer had one-person exhibitions at the Brunswick Media Center and the Greenwich Art Society in Connecticut, and she participated in an exhibition in the Bruce Museum.  She was commissioned to design the logo for Archeology Associates of Greenwich.

  In 1978 Art International exhibited several of her Great Mother images  along with sculpture by Mary Frank and Lucy Lippard placed her Great Mother images in an exhibition at the Hurlbutt Gallery in Greenwich Ct. and put her in touch with the historically recognized feminist Heresies Project in Manhattan.

   The following year Mayer’s husband was transferred to New Orleans, where she had a solo show at Tulane University, two-person show at Dominican College and was included in more than 20 gallery exhibitions, including Arthur Roger and one-person shows at New Orleans Museum of Art, Aaron Hastings, and Mario Villa.  NOMA commissioned a print edition “The Threat” and the Contemporary Art Society named her Century Club Artist of the Year in 2002 and commissioned a print “Audubon Park.”  In 1985 she was included in the regional Eastern States Competition – images acquired by North Carolina Museum of Art. She was interviewed on Louisiana Public Access TV, and exhibited in Louisiana Now in the CAC.

   One of her solo shows at Mario Villa involved all 5 rooms of the gallery, with the theme of The Cave of Art.  Two rooms displayed an installation of oil paintings 8 feet high and 55 feet wide that received full page Times Picayune review and was included in Germany’s Women Artists Creativity and Imagery 1972-1987.

   In the 1980s Mayer was represented by Associated American Artists Gallery on 57^th Street in Manhattan.  The gallery specialized in “Works on Paper” as Major Art. She exhibited in in 8 New York shows. In 2010 Mayer had a one-person show at SOHO/Chelsea.  Her five foot monotypes were presented in A View of Contemporary Women Artists, sponsored jointly by New Orleans Women’s Caucus for Art and the New Orleans Historical Society.

   In 2003 she was awarded the Medici Medal for New Media at the Florence Biennale.  In 2009 her work was included in NOMA’s exhibition The Mind’s Eye. In 2008, Winds of Her Mind, the catalog for her solo show at Off Main Gallery in Medford N.J. was accepted into the Library of Congress. Her work was cited in 2010 PhotoReview Competition with Woodmere Museum of Art exhibition. In 2014 Mayer had a solo show at Villanova University, favorably reviewed in the Villanova Times.  Her work is in museums, municipal, corporate and private collections.  She curated museum and gallery shows including Works On Paper at NOMA in 1989.  In 2014, for the Central Record, she reviewed Picasso Prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

   Mayer has won the National Association of Women Artists Medal of Honor, and Gladys B. Blum Awards; American Color Print Society Stella Drabkin, Silicon Gallery, and Otis B. Morse Memorial, Awards. Others include the New York Graphic Society Award, Chaim Gross Sculpture Award, Herb Lubalin Graphic Arts Award and the New York City Art League Medal.  She was Visiting Artist for the CAC, Education Program in New Orleans and the Non Figurative Workshop she created for a Middle School in Louisiana was published as a Monograph by Lesley University. She created a Directory of 150 Women Artists living in New Orleans.

   She has exhibited in Europe, Africa, New York, California, Connecticut, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Georgia, and Michigan. Mayer was one of three jurors who created the city of New Orleans Municipal Art Collection.

 

She now resides in Pennsylvania.

Villanova University
New Orleans Museum of Art
Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans
Print and Drawing Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art
Anderson Cooper Cancer Center, NJ
Yale University Cancer Center
Dedalo Center for Contemporary Art, Abruzzo, Italy
Print Collection, Free Library, Philadelphia, PA
Atlanticare Medical Center, Atlantic City, NJ
Baptist Hospital, New Orleans
Louis Armstrong International Airport, New Orleans
Ernst & Young, New Orleans
Virlane Collection, New Orleans
Leon Ettel Sculpture House, New York City
Touro Infirmary, New Orleans
Lazarus House, New Orleans
Freeport McMoran, New Orleans
Monroe Regional Hospital, Ocala, FL
Midland Hospital, Michigan
Siena Art Institute, Italy
University of Oregon, Inkspot Collection.