Remembering Joan Mondale by Nancy Weekly

On February 4, 2014, the obituary headline, “Joan Mondale, passionate arts advocate as the wife of vice president, ambassador,” caused sadness and reflection. She had passed away on February 3 at the age of 83. Recalling her love of the arts, I remembered that the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s archives contained black and white photographs documenting her visit to our relatively young museum. Although it was before my tenure started at the Burchfield Center, I would like to share some details of her visit reconstructed through 35-year old records.

Joan Mondale, as wife of U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale, visited the Burchfield Center on March 6, 1979. She was the honorary chairwoman of the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities, traveled to cultural institutions around the country, and was a stalwart advocate for greater congressional support of the arts. Director Edna M. Lindemann and Council Chairman Peter A. Vogt led a preview of the ceramic work that would be installed for the exhibition Language of Clay: 10 Outstanding New York State Artists. Mrs. Mondale spoke with ceramicists Wayne Higby, Gail McCarthy, and Bill Stewart, among other people from the community who joined the entourage, including Robert Buck, director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. J. Benjamin Townsend, editor of Charles E. Burchfield’s Journals, toured Mrs. Mondale through the exhibition Charles Burchfield, Paintings from the Permanent Collection, stopping at Oncoming Spring, one of his most famous season transitions. Documentary photographs show exhibitions in other galleries, including Alexis Jean Fournier, A Barbizon in East Aurora and Contemporary Western New York Artists, Works from the Permanent Collection, Part II, which highlighted paintings by Robert Baeumler, Virginia Cuthbert, Harriet Greif, Walter Prochownik, Don Robertson, and Martha Visser't Hooft.

Nancy Weekly
Head of Collections and the Charles Cary Rumsey Curator