From the street in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles, visitors can't miss the bright neon sign reading "black owned" displayed in an upstairs window of V. Joy Simmons's home. Adjacent to that powerful statement is her front door, adorned with stunning stained-glass windows depicting an elegantly dressed Black couple. When Simmons designed her home in the 1990s, she specifically commissioned renowned artist Varnette Honeywood, working in collaboration with Joyce Dudnick, to create those distinctive stained-glass windows. "I always wanted stained glass doors because you used to see that in rich people's houses back in the day," Simmons explained during a summer interview. "When I built this house, I wanted that."
Inside her two-story Baldwin Hills residence, Simmons maintains an impressive display of more than 150 art objects, ranging from small-scale pieces positioned on shelves to medium-sized lithographs and paintings adorning the walls. Towering sculptures occupy prominent spaces throughout the home. Upon entering, one of the first striking features visitors encounter is a set of columns that Lauren Halsey painted in 2019, with one side portraying women and the other depicting men.
Simmons began her collecting journey in the 1970s during her first year of medical school at UCLA. Her inaugural purchase was a 1973 lithograph by Elizabeth Catlett titled "Which Way?", showing a Black woman's face looking in three directions, which cost her $50. "That's never come down," she noted, referring to the piece that still holds a place of honor in her home. This modest beginning launched what would become one of Los Angeles's most significant private collections of work by Black artists and artists of color.
The collection features cornerstone works by legendary artists including Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, and Howardena Pindell, whose 1974 mixed-media abstraction hangs in Simmons's bedroom. However, she has also been a long-time supporter of the next generation of artists, with works by Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Kehinde Wiley, and Carrie Mae Weems forming core elements of her holdings. Demonstrating her commitment to intergenerational dialogue, near a 1989 Marshall painting hangs a portrait by Christen Austin and a photograph by Thandiwe Muriu, both artists more than three decades younger than Marshall.
"I try to have a young artist in conversation with a Kerry James Marshall," Simmons explained. This approach to curating reflects her long-standing appreciation for intergenerational juxtapositions, as Marshall's work once hung near pieces by Bearden. Throughout the house, visitors encounter a who's who of major Black artists, including Henry Taylor, Noah Davis, Lyle Ashton Harris, Pope.L, Shinique Smith, vanessa german, and Deborah Roberts, among many others. Notably, one of the rare works in the collection by a white artist is an Andy Warhol screen print from the 1985 Reigning Queens series representing Queen Ntombi Twala of Swaziland.
Simmons demonstrates a keen eye for unusual and meaningful finds. Near a coffee table displaying a sculpture by Patrick Martinez resembling a birthday cake for Martin Luther King Jr., sits a church pew where a couch might normally be placed. This reclaimed object was part of a commission Genevieve Gaignard created for the Prospect New Orleans triennial, and the artist also made an installation for one of the home's bathrooms. In the backyard stands a bottle tree sculpture by Dominique Moody, continuing a long tradition in the American South with roots in Western Africa and the Caribbean, where blue glass bottles placed on tree branches are believed to ward off evil spirits.
The stairwell to the second floor features upscaled versions of Daniel Joseph Martinez's museum admission tags from the 1993 Whitney Biennial, which collectively spell out the phrase "i can't imagine ever wanting to be white." At the top of the stairs, a two-sided family portrait in the shape of a waist-high front gate, commissioned from Glen Wilson, serves both as art and functional element. Simmons never concerned herself with exhibiting her collection conventionally or following others' purchasing patterns. "I wanted my collection to look the way I wanted my collection to look, and I didn't want anything that anyone else had," she stated firmly.
Simmons has called South Los Angeles home for nearly her entire life. Her family moved to the View Park neighborhood in 1963, and they still own her childhood home. She was part of the first tenth-grade class when Crenshaw High School opened in 1968, where she began developing her interest in the arts through classes with artist Alonzo Davis, who passed away in January. As part of one of those classes, sixteen-year-old Simmons created an assemblage she thought was "pretty fantastic." Davis politely disagreed, telling her, "Simmons, you've got an eye, but maybe you should be a collector."
The pivotal moment in Simmons's collecting journey occurred during her freshman year at Stanford University when she visited her aunt and uncle, Janet and Ron Carter, in New York. Janet, who died in 2000, was an early board member of the Studio Museum in Harlem, while Ron is an acclaimed jazz bassist. Their home featured works by Jack Whitten, Melvin Edwards, and Howardena Pindell, among many others. "That was the first time I was able to see art in a home like this, and that's when I said, 'This is it,'" Simmons recalled of her decision to become a serious collector. Soon after, she purchased the Catlett print and became a frequent visitor to Brockman Gallery, an influential Los Angeles space known for supporting artists of color that Davis co-founded with his brother in 1967.
During her time off from school, Simmons made frequent trips to the Carters' home, immersing herself in their social circle and attending important exhibitions featuring Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence. Her uncle often hosted joint birthday parties with Edwards, and artists like Valerie Maynard, Merton Simpson, and Terry Adkins were regular visitors. After her first year of medical school, she even took the summer off to live with them while working as a flight attendant for Trans World Airlines, though a recession-induced furlough convinced her to return to medical school.
Janet Carter's influence extended far beyond collecting. She hosted elaborate soirees that brought together a community of artists, curators, and collectors, and Simmons has carried on this tradition, making her own home a central gathering place for the Los Angeles arts community. Recently, EJ Hill held a book signing in Simmons's home for a new monograph, and Lauren Halsey's Summaeverythang community center staged a fundraiser there. A couple of years ago, Simmons even hosted a reception for Koyo Kouoh, the late curator who was set to organize the 2026 Venice Biennale, during her visit to Los Angeles from South Africa.
"Janet Carter taught me about not only being a collector and acquiring the work, but what it means to be a patron," Simmons reflected. "You had people over. You entertained. You had these soirees. You supported artists when they needed stuff." She emphasized that collecting involves a greater purpose: "Acquiring is one thing, but there is a bigger purpose to be had."
Simmons began attending UCLA Medical School in the mid-1970s as part of a rising cohort of young Black physicians. She estimates she may have been only the tenth Black woman to graduate from her program. For more than four decades, she has practiced as a radiologist. She moved to her current house in 1979, a year after getting married, while completing her medical residency. Her daughters, Naima and Amy, were born shortly after. However, when she divorced in 1987, she wanted a fresh start and decided to rebuild the house from scratch.
Taking an architecture class at UCLA and a construction class at Los Angeles City College, which was near the medical center where she worked, Simmons embarked on an ambitious renovation project. "I want the girls to be able to see that you can do something as a single woman," she recalled thinking. While others may have found her vision unusual, she felt blessed that people supported her dream, though she admitted, "I was just praying I could pull this thing off."
Simmons designed her home specifically to accommodate her ever-changing collection, as she frequently loans works to institutional exhibitions. She estimates moving things around three to four times per year. During the summer visit, Mickalene Thomas's rhinestone-and-paint portrait of a Black woman, "Look at What You've Become" (2005), had recently returned from the artist's survey at the Broad in Los Angeles. Simmons was also focused on bringing works out of storage that she hadn't seen in a while, including a Lorna Simpson diptych from 2013 and an undated Raymond Saunders collage she purchased decades ago. "I pay more for storage than I do my mortgage," Simmons laughed infectiously.
Currently purchasing around ten works per year, Simmons insists on seeing pieces in person before committing to any purchase. "None of the pieces in here were acquired just by a PDF or anything like that. I have to see the work. I have to feel it," she explained, describing her collecting habits as instinctive. If there's a common thread, she continued, "it's supporting artists and having the antennas up to be able to spot talent." Early in her collecting career, she noticed her peers pursuing established masters like Bearden, Lawrence, and Catlett, so she decided to focus on emerging artists. "Early in an artist's career is when you have an impact just by acquiring the art and supporting them that way," she noted.
Around 2011, on artist Mark Steven Greenfield's recommendation, Simmons visited a solo exhibition by Kenturah Davis and was immediately impressed. "This is a talent," she remembered thinking. She contacted Davis and commissioned a portrait of her mother. At the time, Davis was uncertain about her artistic trajectory, but Simmons's encouragement proved transformative. "It meant everything," Davis recalled of that commission. "I couldn't fully grasp it at the time because I was still trying to figure out how to be an artist and make a career of it." Davis still maintained a full-time job then, but the commission empowered her to leave it. "Simmons's patronage helped me branch out," Davis said, adding, "It's amazing how she just follows her intuition with work she likes and her commitment to supporting artists she thinks are doing interesting things."
Beyond collecting, Simmons has become an important patron for both the Los Angeles art community and nationally, following her aunt Janet's example. In 2024, she joined the six-member board of the California African American Museum (CAAM), appointed by the governor. While her daughter, Naima J. Keith, is a former deputy director and chief curator at CAAM, Simmons's history with the institution dates back to the 1990s. She also serves as a commissioner of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and has served on the boards of the Santa Monica Museum of Art (now the ICA LA), LAXART (now the Brick), the Mistake Room, and the Watts House Project, as well as her alma mater Stanford.
When devastating wildfires struck parts of Los Angeles in early 2025, including the historically Black community of Altadena, Simmons immediately recognized that CAAM needed to respond. She contacted the museum's executive director, Cameron Shaw, insisting that CAAM be responsive to the crisis. "It was just heartbreaking," Simmons said about watching the wildfires. "We have to do this exhibition, and we have to do it now. We can't wait until the fall. We need to get this out there now."
The resulting exhibition, titled "Ode to Dena: Black Artistic Legacies of Altadena," opened in April, just months after the fires. The show highlighted works by artists who had called Altadena home, including John Outterbridge and Charles White, as well as contemporary artists who had been impacted, such as Davis, Moody, La Monte Westmoreland, and Martine Syms. Simmons didn't mind being a persistent board member in this instance, telling Shaw she would help find funding to realize the exhibition because CAAM needed to be first to tell the story before another Los Angeles institution beat them to it. "When the fire happened, she was in a position to quickly recognize what could be done," Davis observed. "I'm still amazed at how quickly they were able to pull this thing together, but that sort of flexibility, imagination, and assertiveness to make something happen—she's so good at that. Joy is a real visionary to recognize where to find opportunity, even in the face of a lot of loss."
