Tuesday, July 15
6PM
Ever wondered what goes into the making of a major art catalogue?
Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at how publications are created to accompany traveling exhibitions. The evening will feature books, community, and a special conversation with a guest speaker, joined by AFA Manager of Publications Audrey Walen.
Guests will receive complimentary copies of Making American Artists, Gods and Heros, and other select AFA catalogues. Enjoy light snacks and refreshments while connecting with others interested in art and publishing.
Admission is free, but space is limited. Registration is required.
For questions and additional information, please contact events@amfedarts.org.
If you are able, we kindly suggest a donation to support future AFA public programs. Your generosity helps keep events like this accessible to all.
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About Audrey Walen
Audrey Walen is Head of Publications at the AFA, a role that she returned to after a period as Director of Publications, Interpretation, and Editorial Services at the Brooklyn Museum. She has over three decades of experience as an editor and editorial project manager specializing in heavily illustrated publications, exhibition-related content, and scholarly volumes. She has worked on books with numerous institutions and individuals around the world, including The Clark Art Institute, DelMonico Books, El Museo del Barrio, Franklin Furnace, Independent Curators International, MAPFRE, National Gallery of Art, Phaidon Press, Rizzoli, and Williams College Museum of Art, among others, and has provided editorial services to numerous individual scholars around the world. Books she has produced have won awards such as the Gold Medal for Fine Art, IPPY; “50 Books | 50 Covers” Competition, AIGA + Design Observer; The Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design, American Alliance of Museums, and many more. Audrey studied for her MA in Visual Culture at Middlesex University in London, and received her BFA from the Cooper Union. She is currently working toward an EMBA degree with Quantic, with a focus on Strategy and Leadership.
About Jeremiah William McCarthy
Jeremiah William McCarthy is Chief Curator and Curator of American Art at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University. He previously served as Chief Curator at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, where he organized major exhibitions including Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven, The Great Search: Art in a Time of Change, 1928–1945, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Southwestern Pennsylvania—the most attended exhibition in the museum’s history, now traveling nationally. During his tenure, he reimagined the permanent collection galleries and significantly diversified the museum’s holdings with works by Anila Quayyum Agha, Charles Atlas, Nick Cave, Elizabeth Catlett, Dorothy Dehner, Toshiko Takaezu, and others.
McCarthy has held curatorial positions at the American Federation of Arts, the National Academy of Design, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, where he co-organized Inspired Encounters: Women Artists and the Legacies of Modern Art (2022–23), the inaugural exhibition at the David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center in Tarrytown, NY. He also co-organized For America: Paintings from the National Academy of Design and Women Artists in Paris, 1850–1900, both accompanied by Yale University Press catalogues. He has worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and The Frick Collection, where he was an inaugural teaching fellow, and has taught art history at The City College of New York.
His recent publication, Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven, published by Dancing Foxes Press, accompanies the exhibition of the same name opening at the Michener Art Museum on September 6, 2025. https://dfpress.org/books/anila-quayyum-agha-interwoven/
AFA public programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. These programs are also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. We are also grateful for the support of the American Chai Trust, the Arthur F. & Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, Berkley Asset Protection, and Huntington T. Block Insurance.
