Brooklyn-born abstract painter Joan Gold received her art education at The Brooklyn Museum in New York City, at The Escuela de Bellas Artes in Caracas, Venezuela and she has a BFA from The Cooper Union. In 1955 she was awarded a U. S. State Department fellowship to paint and study in Venezuela where she remained for the next twenty-four years. She retired as Associate Professor of the Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, and received awards for her service to the country as an educator. In 1990 she received a Yaddo Fellowship in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 2018 she was awarded a Pollack-Krasner grant. Other honors have included the Victor Jacoby Award two times, the Beverly Faben Artist Grant, the Ingrid Nickelsen Trust, Grant for Women Artists and the Humboldt Arts Council Art in Place award. She has exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad. Gold’s work is represented in public, corporate and private collections including those of G.E. Corporation, Continental Cablevision, Massachusetts General Hospital, U.S. Air, the U.S. Embassy in Uganda, the Morris Graves Museum and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Two of her painting are included in the private collection of Bill and Melinda Gates. She has lived and worked in Humboldt County, California since returning to the U.S. in 1979.