CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 7/24/2025

The Artist Legacy Foundation and MAD present Cynthia de Bos, Dan Nadel, Heidi Lau and Jodi Throckmorton on Viola Frey

Thursday, July 24, from 6–8 PM, the Artists’ Legacy Foundation and Manhattan's Museum of Arts and Design present an evening conversation in celebration of the publication of Viola Frey: Artist's Mind / Studio / World, the first monograph published about the legendary California artist. The conversation will be moderated by the book’s co-editor and manager of the Viola Frey Archives, Cynthia de Bos. De Bos will discuss Frey's life, work and influences with ceramicist Heidi Lau, Dan Nadel, the Steven and Ann Ames Curator of Drawings and Prints for the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Jodi Throckmorton, chief curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Viola Frey’s prolific career spanned over fifty years and straddled mediums, seamlessly transitioning between three dimensions and two, from the intimate to the monumental. Known best for her large-scale figurative ceramic sculptures—many towering over 10 feet tall—Frey’s dedication to her art practice extended beyond her devotion to clay and encompassed painting, drawing, and varied mediums for sculpture. MAD’s 2010 survey Bigger, Better, More: The Art of Viola Frey was the artist’s first major exhibition since her death in 2004. Frey’s work is part of MAD’s permanent collection and was recently on view as part of Funk You Too! Humor and Irreverence in Ceramic Sculpture.

Books will be available for purchase.

Tickets here.

A Questioning Woman: The Legacy of Viola Frey
Cynthia de Bos, Dan Nadel, Heidi Lau and Jodi Throckmorton
Thursday, July 24, 6–8 PM
Museum of Arts and Design
Jerome and Simona Chazen Building
2 Columbus Circle, NYC, 10019