As design curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn., Mickey Friedman single-handedly made and sustained contributions to the architecture and design professions in countless ways. Most notable were the series of installation-based exhibits Friedman created, ranging from showing the works of emerging young architects to major traveling exhibitions on graphic design, that defined a generation of architects and continue to prove seminal to their work today.

Friedman received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of California. As design curator at the Walker Art Center (1970-1991), Friedman organized numerous exhibitions dealing with architecture and design and launched the careers of several renowned designers including Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Frank Israel, Todd Williams, Billie Tsien, Elizabeth Diller and Ric Scofidio. Some notable exhibits at the Walker Art Center include "Tokyo: Form and Spirit" (1986 with Martin Friedman); "Graphic Design in America" (1989) and the series "Architecture Tomorrow" (1989-1991). She edited Design Quarterly, an international forum for architecture, design and design theory from 1970-1991.

As design curator, Friedman also headed the Walker Art Center's design department and worked with artists and sculptors in the design of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, the largest urban sculpture garden in the country.

After her tenure at the Walker Art Center, Friedman was a guest co-curator of the exhibition "Vital Forms" at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which opened in October 2001. She was also the guest curator for the 2001 Guggenheim Museum exhibition "Frank Gehry, Architect" and wrote the introduction for and edited the book, "Gehry Talks" (1999). Friedman was a guest curator for the exhibition "Carol Scarpa, Architect: Intervening with History" (1999), organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Friedman was a member of the Visiting Committee for the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University from 1994-1996. For two years, she consulted the Battery Park City Authority in New York City and participated in the commissioning of a number of public art works. She has been a member of the Board of Directors at the Van Alen Institute, N.Y., since 1993.

Friedman has received numerous honors, most notably the AIA Institute Honors (1994), Graham Foundation grant for the preparation of an anthology of Design Quarterly essays (1997), "Who's Who" in America and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts at Hamline University and Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Friedman currently resides in New York City.