Posted on 05/09/2014 7:54:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- When Alice Walton, the Wal-Mart heiress and second richest woman in America, decided to build a Museum of American Art in her hometown deep in the Arkansas Ozarks, no one questioned her ability to spend money. Her daddy, Sam Walton, had left her a lot of it. Forbes puts her worth at $34.9 billion. What they questioned, expressed with bicoastal sneer and snark, was her ability to know what she was getting for daddy's money.
When she called the museum "Crystal Bridges," commemorating a natural stream to be traversed on bridges leading visitors to the art, the snobs got out their long knives, scoffing that the name sounded like a hillbilly stripper. She was regarded as a backwoods interloper in the Manhattan art world, a "culture vulture" forging a "false front for Wal-Mart," the naif peddling a hollow experience to the natives. The mascot of the state university, after all, is the feral razorback hog.
But Mrs. Walton, 64, (she kept her maiden name after two failed marriages) has loved art since, as a 10-year-old she bought her first "painting" at her father's 5-and-dime store on the town square, a print of Picasso's "Blue Nude." Five decades later she got the attention of the art world when she purchased "Kindred Spirits," a spectacular work of the Hudson River School by Asher B. Durand, for $35 million from the New York City Public Library. The art world howled. The painting is a piece of cultural history commemorating the friendship of Thomas Cole, the landscape painter and the poet William Cullen Bryant. It was thought much too important for the eyes of rubes.
But the intrepid collector, who had painted watercolors of flora and fauna with her mother on camping trips while daddy and her three brothers fished, had other ideas. "Kindred Spirits" was the perfect centerpiece for the regional museum to link art and nature. She hired architect Moshe Safdie, renowned for integrating buildings into the landscape, to design the museum.
The rustics cheered her, watching construction from an overlook deck, and came out in greater numbers when the $1.2 billion museum opened in November 2011. Eight of every 10 of the million visitors so far have been from Arkansas and its "touching states," Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma.
A stream of bright yellow school busses pulls up to the museum with squealing teenagers from the surrounding states eager for their first look at real art.
What they see is a unique collaboration of art and nature -- walking trails punctuated by witty sculptures of bronze bears, a tortoise, a hare, as well as magnificent abstractions by modernists. The museum is a natural art education where realistic, classic, pop and abstract art are in conversation with each other, challenging different points of view. Norman Rockwell's famous "Rosie the Riveter" meets Charles Willson Peale's "George Washington." Andy Warhol's "Dolly Parton" meets "Cupid and Psyche" by Benjamin West. One wing displays stunning paintings from the nation's colonial past. Donald Judd, Mark di Suvero and Jeff Koons are the contemporary stars.
Thousands of children from elementary school through high school have taken educational tours. Their transportation, lunches and even substitute teachers are paid from a $10 million endowment from the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation. In one study, children who had visited the museum demonstrate critical thinking skills and an openness to aesthetic values, recalling visual details of what they had seen.
The museum surprises critics, too. Alice Walton is in the ranks now with other zillionaires -- the likes of Henry Clay Frick, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Duncan Phillips -- who turned their collections into museums and libraries.
Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, has contributed to the transformation of Northwest Arkansas, once the poorest part of a poor state. Surrounding towns have spruced up the town square, invested in schools and infrastructure, and now the region is the most prosperous part of the state (and led the political transformation of Arkansas from stubborn blue to reliable red). Travel magazines call Bentonville one of the "hottest" travel destinations, and the town has grown from 6,000 when Sam Walton opened his first Ben Franklin 5 and 10 Store on the town square in 1950 to more than 65,000 now. A new boutique hotel just off the square exhibits avant-garde art in the lobby. There's a Wal-Mart Museum on the square, with a video of Sam Walton in a grass skirt dancing the hula on Wall Street, celebrating an 8 percent profit for the first year Wal-Mart went public.
This is the week in May when collectors rush to New York for spring auctions to spend their millions on additions to museum collections. In Bentonville such art is free for the watching, with the sun shining after a hard winter and dogwoods in bloom on the mountains. Sometimes life feels like a masterpiece.
I will never understand certain things.
And one of those, is how or why anyone would criticize someone from the Walton family starting an art museum.
Why would anyone give a blank, and get their panties in a twist, over a member of the Walton family starting an art museum? If that is what she is interested in, and she has the means to build and operate a museum, what is it to the critics of what she decides to do?????
Went there last year while visiting relatives in the area. The grounds are lovely and the building is nice too. The art is just a part of it. I did notice that the grounds and building itself was full while the galleries actually displaying the art were sparsely populated. lol
They used to laugh at Miss Ima Hogg too! (daughter of the late Governor of TX). She went head to head with Henri Du Pont in establishing a marvelous collection of early American furniture which can be enjoyed today at her home in Houston, Bayou Bend. She also established a collection of American chairs in the decorative arts department of Houston Baptist University. She also established the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the town wept when she died in the 1970s.
Thanks for posting this. Mrs R and I will be in the area next month, and will do our best to make time for this.
I’ve been to Crystal Bridges! It is about 25 miles from me and is well worth the trip!
The art there is GREAT AMERICAN ART! It is not “barns on sawblades” art.
I went over to show my niece an old painting but it was not there. I asked a custodian about it and she said it is on loan to the LOUVRE in Paris.
I saw one of my favorite Thomas Moran paintings there on loan from GILCREASE in Tulsa OK.
The paintings are stunners!
The NORMAN ROCKWELL exhibition was there last year. Well worth it even though I had to buy a ticket and wait in line.
The original ROSIE THE RIVETER is on permanent display there.
The food in the court is also good.
Another southern art museum. . .
The Tuscaloosa Museum of Art displays approximately 1000 works of fine and decorative arts. The collection was amassed by Jack Warner, over several decades, as investments for Gulf States Paper, now the Westervelt Company.
Considered to be one of the greatest private collections of American Art, it is truly a treasure within the community.
Featuring such artists as:
John Singer Sargent; George Luks; Edward Potthast; Andrew Wyeth; Jamie Wyeth; Edward Hicks; Thomas Moran; Albert Bierstadt; Basil Ede; Duncan Phyfe and Charles Lannieur.
bttt
I love the museum and the grounds, but to be frank it all worries me. Between it and the relocation of the apparel dept from NYC I fear a Marxist/postmodern/Pagan/homosexualist tide slowly rising in the area. I moved here a mere 4 years ago from seedy Atlanta, recently having joined the Catholic Church after decades lost to sin and confusion, and felt like I’d been transplanted to Heaven. It was a marvel to meet so many loving Christian friends, know that my kids were reasonably safe from cultural corruption, and even not have to worry about being car jacked in the mall parking lot! I mean the area is truly saturated by the Gospel, at least compared to everywhere else I’ve lived. But having come from the “art crowd” (I was a drawing and painting/graphic design major in college and then worked in the museum industry) I know all too well how subversion and indoctrination drive the industry and the culture. I have heard that Central in Bentonville is a gay area already and fear that they’re just waiting to achieve critical mass before the rainbow flags go up and various “tolerance” programs are introduced to the schools. My friends all think the museum is a wonderful blessing but I just want to jump up and down and waive my hands around shouting “WATCH OUT!!!” This museum could be the perfect Trojan horse to infect one of the last holdouts of real America. LOL, I was suspicious of the recent Georgia O’Keefe exhibit. Praying that I am wrong. Would love to get a job there eventually...keep an eye on things from the inside, heh heh.
While in Bentonville, check out the Native American Museum-STUNNING! Free admission, private collection-very worthwhile!
***I have heard that Central in Bentonville is a gay area ***
Are you referring to the Bentonville Square area or the Central School area to the South?
Word of Warning, don’t go fishing on the South side of Lake Fayetteville! The police often sweep the area as it is a hangout for some of the UA sodomite students.
The area is changing, some for the better and some for the worse. It is certainly safer than most cities.
Where is it!
I meant the street. But I can’t remember whether it’s Central Street or Central Ave so I just wrote Central, LOL. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the heads up on Lake Fayetteville. Hopefully the same fate won’t fall to Lake Atalanta any time soon...or any of the other numerous parks and nature trails all over the place here. :/
The native American museum is down the west side of 2nd St I believe. It is really cool!
Good one. :)
Turn west off of Walton Blvd. onto Hwy. 72 toward Hiwasse. You’ll see it after a block or two-not very far-AMAZING!
Big teepee-can’t miss it!
Turn west off of Walton Blvd. onto Hwy. 72 toward Hiwasse. You’ll see it after a block or two-not very far-AMAZING!
Big teepee-can’t miss it!
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