Joan Mondale, former VP's wife, dies at 83

Published February 03, 2014

Associated Press

Sept. 17, 2003: Former first lady Rosalynn Carter, left, and wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale, Joan Mondale, chat prior to the opening of a symposium for the 25th anniversary of the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt.Reuters

Joan Mondale, who built a reputation as a national cultural arts advocate while her husband was vice president, has died. She was 83.

Her family issued a statement through their church saying she died Monday afternoon with family by her side.

Mondale was so passionate about the arts that she was nicknamed "Joan of Art." She herself was an avid potter when her husband Walter, then a Democratic U.S. senator from Minnesota, was elected Jimmy Carter's vice president in 1976.

Carter named Joan Mondale honorary chairwoman of the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. She traveled frequently to museums, theaters and artists' studios on the administration's behalf, and lobbied Congress and the states for more spending on public arts programs.