Background
Joan Lebold Cohen was born on August 19, 1932 in Highland Park, Illinois, United States.
Joan Lebold Cohen was born on August 19, 1932 in Highland Park, Illinois, United States.
Joan Lebold Cohen received her bachelor of arts from Smith College in 1954. Since 1960 she has studied Asian art and culture informally at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard University.
Since 1979 Joan Cohen has been a freelance photographer and writer in Beijing, China. Previous to that time she lectured in Art History at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts (since 1968). From 1965 to 1972 she was a gallery instructor in the Department of Public Education at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and from 1955 to 1956 was registrar at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Joan Cohen assisted with the slide and photograph collections of the Yale University Department of Fine Arts, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1954-1955.
Joan Cohen has been on the Smith College Alumnae Quarterly Editorial Board since 1978 and on the college's Museum of Art Visiting Committee since 1974. She was also on the board of directors of the Artists' Foundation in Massachusetts.
Joan Cohen created shows for the television programs "Images'' (WGBH-TV, Boston, 1965-1966) and "Classroom 5" (WHDH-TV, 1966). She also produced filmstrips on "Art and Politics in China 1978" for Mass Communications, Inc., Westport, Connecticut.