When this magazine declared the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis “America’s leading museum of design” in 1990 [RECORD, March 1990, pages 45-47], it was paying tribute to Mildred Friedman, who died on September 3, at 85, in New York City.
Beginning in 1969, Mildred—who went by Mickey—had been the museum’s go-to-person for anything and everything relating to design. She was best known for curating a series of prescient exhibitions on architecture and design while editing the Walker’s incisive and influential Design Quarterly. At the same time, she presided over a design studio that produced the Walker’s award-winning catalogues and signage. She also wrote (or co-wrote) dozens of books, most of them on architecture, and served as an informal design advisor to Minneapolis grandees, finding commissions for Philip Johnson, Cesar Pelli and, eventually, Frank Gehry, in and around that city.
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