About Me

Drawing inspiration from the vast button collection of his mother and family, Beau McCall creates visual and wearable art by hand-sewing clothing buttons onto mostly upcycled fabrics, materials, and objects. With deliberate focus the buttons are arranged to stimulate one’s curiosity and imagination, while simultaneously drawing attention to the unique history of buttons. Thereby McCall’s work generates a discussion surrounding many topics such as pop culture and social justice.

McCall began his professional career in Harlem in the 1980s after arriving from his native, Philadelphia with nothing more than a few hundred dollars, a duffel bag, and buttons. Circa 1988 he made his critically acclaimed wearable art debut at The Harlem Institute of Fashion (HIF) show for HARLEM WEEK. McCall went on to become an established force within HIF’s collective presenting at their shows consecutively through 1995, as well being featured in their Black Fashion Museum exhibitions and prestigious events. During this time, McCall’s visually captivating work was featured in the fashion bible Women’s Wear Daily, on the PBS version of George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum (1991), and in the award-winning film Quartier Mozart (1992), directed by Jean-Pierre Bekolo. The film won prizes at film festivals in Cannes, Locarno, and Montreal and was nominated, in 1993, for a British Film Institute award.

McCall eventually applied his mastery of the button to visual art. Since then, he’s been proclaimed by American Craft magazine as “The Button Man.” His work is held in the permanent collection of public institutions and by private individuals including the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, CA), Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK), Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI), The Museum at FIT (New York, NY), Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (New York, NY), Amistad Research Center (New Orleans, LA), The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J. Watson Library (New York, NY), The Museum of Modern Art Library (New York, NY), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (New York, NY), Stonewall National Museum & Archives (Fort Lauderdale, FL), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library (San Francisco, CA), Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors Residence (New York, NY), Debbie Harry of Blondie, Jeffrey Gibson, and Cristina Grajales. McCall has also been commissioned by the Museum of Arts and Design, The Newark Museum of Art (Newark, NJ), Columbia University (New York, NY), and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

McCall’s visual and wearable art has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Arts and Design, The Museum at FIT, Park Avenue Armory (New York, NY), Nordstrom (New York, NY), the African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA), Houston Museum of African American Culture (Houston, TX), Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (Detroit, MI), Stax Museum of American Soul Music (Memphis, TN), the Langston Hughes House (New York, NY) in partnership with the inaugural Columbia University Wallach Art Gallery Uptown triennial and StoryCorps, and Rush Arts Gallery (New York, NY). And his wearable art can be found in multiple Museum gift shops.

McCall has been featured in The New York Times, Associated Press, NPR, Los Angeles Times, on PBS, and more. In addition, he has served as a speaker and/or teaching artist at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA), the New York Public Library, and the Harlem Arts Alliance. 

McCall has also created a wearable art line called, Triple T-shirts. For these pieces, he upcycles three T-shirts by combining them into one flowing garment that can be worn in six different ways. Each style—from poncho to hoodie to shawl and beyond—brings dynamic versatility to traditional T-shirts. The shirts are curated to form a narrative about various socially-conscious and lighthearted themes.

In 2021, McCall released his debut artists’ book titled, REWIND: MEMORIES ON REPEAT, commissioned and published by SHINE Portrait Studio@ Express Newark, Rutgers University-Newark. The book honors the legacy of ten of McCall’s deceased friends through collages composed of archival photos and images from his button artwork. The collages capture the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, from Philadelphia to New York, during the LGBTQ+ rights movement, the height of disco music and the AIDS crisis.

In 2024, McCall debuted his first-ever retrospective and exhibition catalog titled, Beau McCall: Buttons On! at Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, MA). The exhibition is currently on a nationwide tour including stops at the Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco, CA), Mattatuck Museum (Waterbury, CT), and the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

In McCall's words, his artistic practice is rooted in the belief that, “With a teeny tiny button you can create, you can have a voice, and you can inspire.” 

McCall currently lives and works in Harlem, NY.