Marica Vilcek’s Book Launch at the Met

Marica Vilcek’s Book Launch at The Metropolitan Museum of Art | NYC Event Photography

Some evenings in New York City feel like history unfolding in real time, and the January book launch for Marica Vilcek’s memoir, Giving and Receiving: Memoirs of an Immigrant Curator and Philanthropist, was exactly that kind of night.

The book tells Marica’s extraordinary story, from her early life in war-torn Czechoslovakia — where government corruption and the blacklisting of her family curtailed her ambitions — to her defection to the United States and her remarkable 30-year career at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hyperallergic There could be no more fitting venue to celebrate it.

Over her tenure at The Met, Marica rose to Associate Curator in charge of the Accessions and Catalogue Department, reshaping the cataloging process and embracing the first generation of museum digitization. Vilcek Foundation At her encouragement, she and her husband Jan established the Vilcek Foundation, which has since awarded more than $17 million in prizes and grants to immigrants in the arts and sciences across the United States. Hyperallergic

The launch drew an intimate gathering of arts luminaries, philanthropists, and cultural leaders — the kind of crowd that fills a room with decades of shared history.