Martin Friedman: Elitist for the masses

Martin Friedman, the former director of the Walker Art Center who died Monday at the age of 90, led the museum for nearly three decades. During that time he transformed it into a community space for all kinds of art.

He was hired as a curator for the Walker in 1958. It was his first curating job; he proved so good at it that three years later he was appointed museum director.

"The Walker Art Center was a very provincial museum with a very modest collection at best, an old Beaux-Arts building that was not very good for art," recalled Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. "It was known for doing a little bit, but it was not a major force."

Weinberg worked under Friedman at the Walker for eight years. Over a couple of decades, he said, Friedman turned the museum into a creative center with an international reputation. He established a film program and a performing arts program. He oversaw the building of a new home for the museum, and developed relationships with up-and-coming artists.

Friedman cared deeply both for high art and the community, said Weinberg.

"Martin Friedman, in a way, was an elitist, but he was somebody who believed that everybody should join the elite," he said. "He believed in the arts for the people, even as he championed some very difficult work that wasn't always accessible."

Friedman prized relationships with artists, and created a tradition of collaborating with them and commissioning new work, Weinberg said. He described Friedman as having the visual equivalent of perfect pitch — hanging a show so that the art, the space and the lighting all worked in harmony.

But any remembrance of Friedman would be incomplete, he cautioned, without mention of his wife, curator Mildred Friedman. They collaborated on virtually every exhibition, Weinberg said.

"It was a very much a family operation in that sense, and the two of them pushed each other to realize things that maybe neither of them could realize alone — and theirs was one of the great partnerships in the museum world," he said.

Mildred — or Mickey, as she was known — died in 2014.

Olga Viso was introduced to the Friedmans when she was appointed executive director of the Walker Art Center in 2008, and she soon heard about what was called "Friedman perfectionism" — an exacting eye for aesthetic perfection even before a patron set foot in the door.

"Right before an opening, Martin would have the grounds crew go and literally turn the snow, using shovels, to make sure that there was a perfect carpet of white that surrounded our museum building," she said.

One of Friedman's last accomplishments before leaving the Walker was opening the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, a place for the community to enjoy contemporary art for free. Viso said the project was the first of its kind in the nation.

"I think it's one of the things he was most proud of during his tenure, and how in almost 30 years since it's been open, 9 million visitors have come and it's become the iconic destination in our city," she said.

Viso is currently remodeling and expanding the garden as it nears its 30th anniversary. While many people urged her to preserve the Sculpture Garden in its current form, Viso said, the Friedmans encouraged her to bring it into the future and to make it new again.