Joyce Cowin

Joyce B. Cowin is a champion of education and the arts.  A noted philanthropist in New York City, she has served on the Boards of such illustrious institutions as the American Folk Art Museum, Teacher’s College at Columbia University, the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and more.  Through her involvement at Teacher’s College, she helped to create the Heritage School, an arts-themed public high school in East Harlem, and founded the Cowin Financial Literacy Program for public school children. In addition, she founded the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery at the New York Historical Society.  

Joyce’s late husband and former ICP Trustee, Daniel Cowin, was a devoted collector of photography and an early believer in the medium as an art form.  Following his death, she has generously supported ICP over the years and donated the Daniel Cowin Collection of African American History, a trove of more than two thousand postcards, stereographs, cartes-de-visite, tintypes, albumen prints, and gelatin silver prints. Taken together, these ephemeral images provide an important window into African American cultural life from 1860 to about 1930.  

Joyce’s impact on New York City through her advocacy and support for arts, culture and education will be felt for generations, and ICP is proud to be a part of her meaningful legacy.