Coordinates: 36°22′57″N 94°12′13″W / 36.3825°N 94.203611°W / 36.3825; -94.203611

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
View across the upper pond to one of the museum's namesake bridge pavilions
Established	November 11, 2011[1]
Location	600 Museum Way Bentonville, Arkansas
Type	American art
Director	Don Bacigalupi
Nearest car park	Garage and surface lot on site (no charge)
Website	http://crystalbridges.org/

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on November 11, 2011. It offers free public admission.

Overview and founding[link]

Alice Walton, the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, spearheaded the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges. The museum's glass-and-wood design by architect Moshe Safdie (Boston, MA) and engineer Buro Happold (New York, NY) features a series of pavilions nestled around two creek-fed ponds. The complex, constructed by a joint venture of Linbeck Group (Houston, TX) and Nabholz Construction (Conway, AR), includes 217,000 square feet (20,200 m²) of galleries, several meeting and classroom spaces, a library, a sculpture garden, a gift shop, a full service restaurant and coffee bar, and a gathering space that can accommodate up to 300 people. Additionally, there are outdoor areas for concerts and public events, as well as extensive nature trails. It employs approximately 160 people, and is within walking distance of downtown Bentonville.^[2] The museum has amassed $488 million in assets as of August 2008, an amount that will increase as more pieces are continually added to the museum's collection.^[3] $317 million of the project's cost has been donated by Alice Walton.^[3] A 2011 Forbes' ranking of the world's richest people placed the Wal-Mart heiress at No. 21, with an estimated net worth of $21.2 billion.^[4]

In 2005, art historian John Wilmerding was hired for acquisition and advice on museum programming.^[5] Wilmerding commented that Alice Walton "will not spend at any cost" and will do her "homework on almost every individual acquisition and will ask for paperwork on market comparables".^[6] He stated that often when an artwork became available through a private sale Walton would state ‘Wait, it will come to auction where we can get it at a better price,’ and she was usually correct.^[7] He also stated that the museum instantly ranks at least in the top half dozen of American art museums. The museum's "quality and its range and depth already place it among one of the very best."^[6]

Headlines were generated after delays in construction and considerably higher costs for the museum than originally proposed to the city of Bentonville, Arkansas led to concerns about the favorable tax exemptions granted to the museum from the state in 2005 to secure its construction.^[8] Total tax losses to the state of Arkansas and the city of Bentonville are estimated at $17 million based on the financial disclosures given by the museum in the 2008 court case with Fisk University.^[8] The total amount of tax loss is estimated to have become considerably higher since then, but may never be disclosed due to the museum's guarded financial practices, including its decision not to disclose the amount spent since 2008 to secure collections, major art pieces, and lesser known works.^[9] However, the museum's IRS Form 990-PF notes acquisitions of $43.6 million during 2008, $81.9 million during 2007, $97.3 million in 2006. Through 2008, the total art acquisitions were at least $222.8 million.^[6]

Don Bacigalupi was appointed director of the museum in August 2009.^[10] Previously, Robert G. Workman had served as director.^[11] In early May 2011, the museum announced three endowments by the Walton Family Foundation totaling $800 million. These endowments were established for operating expenses, acquisitions and capital improvements. The operating endowment, totaling $350 million, is being used to contribute to the museum's base annual operating expenses expected to total between $16–20 million per year. The acquisition endowment, totaling $325 million, will be used to fund additions to the museum's permanent collection. The remaining $125 million will be used as a capital improvement endowment to fund future improvements to and maintenance of the museum.^[12]

Collaboration with other museums and institutions[link]

Walker Landing plaza between galleries

In the past few years, Crystal Bridges has been in the news for numerous arrangements and partnerships with other art museums to share collections.

In 2006, the museum partnered with the National Gallery of Art in an attempt to purchase Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic from Thomas Jefferson University. Under the terms of the agreement, the two museums agreed to pay a record $68 million, but the university gave Philadelphia 45 days to match the offer. The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts agreed to collectively match the offer and the painting remained in Philadelphia. The purchase forced both museums to sell some of their best Eakins pieces including Cowboy Singing and the The Cello Player.^[13] In April 2007, Crystal Bridges acquired another Eakins belonging to Thomas Jefferson University entitled Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand for an estimated $20 million^[14]

Walton held talks with Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia in spring of 2007. The college was exploring selling part of the Maier Museum of Art's collection, but voted instead to sell select items from the collection at Christie's.^[15]

In 2007, Fisk University agreed to sell a 50% stake in a 101 piece Stieglitz collection to Crystal Bridges for $30 million. The collection was donated to the university by Georgia O'Keeffe. This agreement became tied up in a legal battle between Fisk and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in New Mexico,^[16] but the museum withdrew its lawsuit later that year. A judge ruled that the collection could possibly be sold to Crystal Bridges if modifications to the contract were made so that Fisk University could not lose its interest in the collection, nor could the joint venture holding ownership of the collection between Fisk University and Crystal Bridges be based in Delaware (or outside Tennessee Courts). The modified agreement would allow the works to stay at Fisk University until 2013 and then begin a two-year rotation with Crystal Bridges.^[17]

Crystal Bridges has announced a four-year collaboration with the musee du Louvre in Paris, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The resulting exhibitions, featuring works from the collections of all four partners, will be seen in Paris, Bentonville, and Atlanta, beginning in 2012.

Permanent collection[link]

Pavilion of restaurant "Eleven" with the main lobby building and 19th-century galleries at left

The museum's permanent collection features American art from the Colonial era to contemporary work. Notable works include a Charles Willson Peale portrait of George Washington as well as paintings by George Bellows, Jasper Cropsey, Asher Durand, Thomas Eakins, Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Charles Bird King, John LaFarge, Stuart Davis, Romare Bearden, Norman Rockwell, Mary McCleary and Walton Ford. Also included are works by Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Alfred Maurer, Jackson Pollock and Tom Wesselman.^[7][18] Two works, Richard Caton Woodville's War News from Mexico and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait's The Life of a Hunter: A Tight Fix were included in American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915, a traveling exhibition organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^[19] The Woodville painting was deaccessioned by the National Academy of Design, and was purchased in 1994 by Detroit collector Richard Manoogian. The piece was later purchased in 2004 by Crystal Bridges.^[20]

In May 2005, the museum purchased a coveted Asher B. Durand landscape entitled Kindred Spirits from the New York Public Library for more than $35 million in a sealed auction.^[21]

Sculpture also figures prominently in the collection, on view in interior galleries and along outdoor sculpture trails. Sculptors represented in the permanent collection include Paul Manship, Roxy Paine, Mark di Suvero, and James Turrell.

Select auction results by date for items in the collection (including buyer's premium) are:

• Green River, Wyoming by Thomas Moran, purchased 5 December 2002 for $2.9245 million^[22]
• George Washington by Charles Willson Peale, purchased 18 May 2004 for $6.1675 million^[23]
• Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife by John Singer Sargent, purchased 19 May 2004 for $8.8 million^[24]
• Orca Bates by Jamie Wyeth, purchased 19 May 2004 for $360,000.^[25]
• Portrait of Anne Page by Dennis Miller Bunker, purchased 1 December 2004 for $3.592 million^[26]
• A French Music Hall by Everett Shinn, purchased 1 December 2004 for $7.848 million^[27]
• The Indian and the Lily by George de Forest Brush, purchased 1 December 2004 for $4.824 million^[28]
• The Studio by George Bellows, purchased 1 December 2004 for $2.472 million^[29]
• Spring by Winslow Homer, purchased 1 December 2004 for $2.024 million^[30]
• Ottoe Half Chief, Husband of Eagle of Delight by Charles Bird King, purchased 1 December 2004 for $1.352 million^[31]
• Wai-Kee-Chai, Sanky Chief, Crouching Eagle by Charles Bird King, purchased 1 December 2004 for $792,000^[32]
• Portrait of Carolus Duran by John Singer Sargent, purchased 2 December 2004 for $724,300^[33]
• Sick Puppy by Norman Rockwell, purchased 2 December 2004 for $511,500^[34][35]
• George Washington (The Constable-Hamilton Portrait) by Gilbert Stuart, purchased 30 November 2005 for $8.136 million^[36]
• Mrs. Theodore Atkinson, Jr. by John Singleton Copley, purchased 30 November 2005 for $3.376 million^[37]
• Marquis de Lafayette by Samuel F. B. Morse, purchased 30 November 2005 for $1.36 million^[38]
• Winter Scene in Brooklyn by Francis Guy, purchased 30 November 2005 for $1.024 million^[39]
• Rose Garden by Maria Oakey Dewing, purchased 24 May 2006 for $2.032 million^[40]
• The Lantern Bearers by Maxfield Parrish, purchased 25 May 2006 for $4.272 million^[41]
• Still Life with Stretcher, Mirror, Bowl of Fruit by Roy Lichtenstein, purchased 20 June 2007 for £4.052 million (US$8.055 million - based on 20 June 2007 exchange rates)^[42]
• Homage to the Square: Joy by Josef Albers, purchased 14 November 2007 for $1.497 million^[43]
• View of Mount Edna by Thomas Cole, purchased 29 November 2007 for $541,000^[44]
• Our Town by Kerry James Marshall, purchased 13 May 2009 for $782,500^[45]
• Supine Woman by Wayne Thiebaud, purchased 12 November 2009 for $1.818 million^[46]
• Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog in a Grape Arbor by Susan Catherine Moore Waters purchased 7 March 2010 for $41,475^[47]
• Portrait of Martha Graham by Marisol Escobar, purchased 13 May 2010 for $116,500^[48]
• Dolly Parton by Andy Warhol, purchased 14 May 2010 for $914,500^[49]
• Standing Explosion (Red) by Roy Lichtenstein, purchased 14 May 2010 for $722,500^[50]
• The Return of the Gleaner by Winslow Homer, purchased 19 May 2010 for $2.2105 million^[51]
• Trinity by Adolph Gottlieb, purchased 11 May 2011 for $1.1425 million^[52][53]

Selected works in the museum collection by chronologic order[link]

• 

  Portrait of George Washington (The Constable-Hamilton Portrait, 1797) by Gilbert Stuart

• 

  Cupid and Psyche (1808) by Benjamin West

• 

  Winter Scene in Brooklyn (c.1817-1820) by Francis Guy

• Samuel Beals Thomas and family.jpg

  Samuel Beals Thomas, with His Wife, Sarah Kellogg Thomas, and Their Two Daughters, Abigail and Pauline (1830) by Edward Dalton Marchant

• View of Mt. Edna Cole.jpg

  View of Mount Edna (1843-44) by Thomas Cole

• War News from Mexico.jpg

  War News from Mexico (1848) by Richard Caton Woodville

• Thomas Cole The Good Sheperd.jpg

  The Good Shepherd (1848) by Thomas Cole

• 

  Kindred Spirits (1849) by Asher B. Durand

• 

  Portrait of Professor Benjamin Rand (1874) by Thomas Eakins

• Mary Cassatt The Reader 1877.jpg

  The Reader (1877) by Mary Cassatt

• 

  Green River, Wyoming (1878) by Thomas Moran

• 

  Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife (1885) by John Singer Sargent

• 

  The Art Student: Portrait of James Wright (circa 1890) by Thomas Eakins

• Robinson-theodore-worlds-columbian-exposition.jpg

  World's Columbian Exposition (1894) by Theodore Robinson

• 

  The Lantern Bearers (1908) by Maxfield Parrish

• 

  Excavation at Night (1908) by George Bellows

References[link]

External links[link]

• Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art website
• Architectural Record, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Safdie Architects, commentary, slide show, and drawings, January 2012
• TimePhotos (Time magazine), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, photos, 21 November 2011
• Bridges Acquires New Work by Walton Ford
• 'A Billionaire’s Eye for Art Shapes Her Singular Museum', Carol Vogel, The New York Times, 16 June 2011
• Bentonville123 History and Photography Bentonville Arkansas history and photograph archive

Alice Walton
Born	(1949-10-07) October 7, 1949 (age 62)[1] Newport, Arkansas
Residence	Millsap, Texas
Citizenship	United States
Education	Trinity University[2]
Known for	Heiress, Walton family fortune
Net worth	US$23.3 billion (est.) (2012)[2]
Board member of	Amon Carter Museum
Spouse	Divorced[2]
Parents	Sam Walton, Helen Walton

Alice Louise Walton (born October 7, 1949 in Newport, Arkansas)^[1] is an American heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune. She is the daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and Helen Walton, and sister of S. Robson Walton and Jim Walton. Another brother, John T. Walton, died in a 2005 plane crash. In September 2011, her estimated net worth was US$20.9 billion, making her the tenth richest American.^[2][3]

Education and career[link]

Walton graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, with a B.A. in economics and finance. She began her career in finance as an equity analyst and money manager for First Commerce Corporation and later served as vice chairperson and head of all investment-related activities at the Arvest Bank Group. In 1988, Walton founded Llama Company, an investment bank engaged in corporate finance, public and structured finance, real estate finance and sales and trading. She served as President, Chairperson and CEO. For a time, she was a broker for E.F. Hutton.

She was the first chairperson and driving force behind the Northwest Arkansas Council. This community development organization played a major role in securing the development of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. In the late 1990s Walton closed Llama Company and moved to a 3,200 acre ranch in Millsap, Texas, named the Rocking W Ranch.^[4] An avid horse-lover, Walton currently lives in a modest one story 4,432 square foot stucco house on the horse ranch. She is known for having an eye for determining which 2 month-olds will grow to be champion cutters.^[5]

Walton arranged for and provided the initial seed capital to finance the construction of the airport. Her involvement was instrumental in the creation of the airport, and in recognition of her contribution to the airport project and her support of transportation improvements throughout the region, the Airport Authority Board of Directors named the airport terminal the Alice L. Walton Terminal Building. In 2001, Walton was inducted into the Arkansas Aviation Hall of Fame.

She was the twentieth largest individual contributor to 527 committees in the U.S. presidential election, 2004, donating US$2.6 million to the conservative Progress for America group.[2] During the 2004 election cycle, Progress for America ran advertisements supporting the Iraq war and praising George W. Bush for preventing "another 9/11".

In his 1992 autobiography "Made in America", Sam Walton remarked that Alice was "the most like me – a maverick – but even more volatile than I am."^[6]

Philanthropy[link]

Alice Walton’s primary philanthropic activity is as a board member of the Walton Family Foundation. She has been active on the Board of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock and the Board of Advisors for the University of Arkansas Graduate Business School at Fayetteville.

In 1996, the University of Arkansas established the Alice L. Walton Chair in Finance, allowing the university, through its College of Business Administration, to pursue educational excellence on a national and international level. Walton's vision led to the creation of Camp War Eagle, a Christian summer camp in Northwest Arkansas that brings together children of differing socio-economic backgrounds.

Art[link]

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas

Walton purchased her first piece of art when she was about ten years old. It was a reproduction of Picasso's Blue Nude she got from her father's Ben Franklin Dime-Store. She and her mother would often paint watercolors on camping trips.^[6] Her interest in art led to her spearheading the Walton Family Foundation's involvement in developing Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the heart of Bentonville, Arkansas. Crystal Bridges, opened in November 2011, is envisioned as a premier venue for a national art institution dedicated to American art and artists, and a place of learning and community.

In December 2004, the art collection of Daniel Fraad and wife, Rita, went up for public auction at Sothebys in New York. Since almost every collector was at the auction, no one could figure out who on the phone was bidding such high prices. It was later discovered that Walton purchased at least $20 million worth of art that day. She bid for most of the items while on a three-year-old gelding named IC LAD preparing to compete in the first qualifying round of the National Cutting Horse Association Futurity at the Will Rogers Coliseum in Ft. Worth, TX.^[6]

In 2005, Walton purchased Asher Brown Durand's celebrated painting, Kindred Spirits, in a sealed-bid auction for a purported US$35 million dollars. The 1849 painting, a tribute to Hudson River School painter Thomas Cole, had been given to the New York Public Library in 1904 by Julia Bryant, the daughter of Romantic poet and New York newspaper publisher William Cullen Bryant (who is depicted in the painting with Cole).^[7] She has also purchased works by American painters Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, as well as a notable portrait of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale,^[8] in preparation for the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.^[9] In 2009 Crystal Bridges museum has acquired Norman Rockwell's iconic Rosie the Riveter^[10] painting for its permanent collection at an undisclosed price.

John Wilmerding, an advisor and board member to Crystal Bridges said Walton has collected the work of some artists in depth, quietly buying substantial bodies of work by Martin Johnson Heade, Stuart Davis, George Bellows and John Singer Sargent.^[11] Walton's attempt to quit smoking led to the purchase two great smoking paintings by Alfred Maurer and Tom Wesselman. In a 2011 interview, she spoke about acquiring great works by other artists. She described Marsden Hartley as "one of my favorite artists-he was a very complex guy, somewhat tormented, but a very spiritual person, and love the emotion and the feel and the spirituality of his work". She went on to say "and Andrew Wyeth-the mystery and loneliness that is expressed. How do you paint loneliness?"^[6]

Walton serves on the board of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas and is a member of the Trustees' Council of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Personal life[link]

Walton has been involved in at least three automobile accidents. During a 1983 Thanksgiving family reunion near Acapulco, Mexico, Walton lost control of a rented Jeep and plunged into a ravine, shattering her leg. She would undergo more than two dozen surgeries and is said to suffer lingering pain from her injuries. In an April 1989 incident, she struck and killed 50-year-old Oleta Hardin, who had stepped into a road. No charges were filed.^[12] In a 1998 incident, she is reported to have hit a gas meter while driving under the influence and told the responding police officer, "I'm Alice Walton, bitch!" She paid a $925 fine and served no jail time.^[13]

On October 7, 2011, her 62nd birthday, she was again arrested for driving while intoxicated in Weatherford, Texas, after a dinner with friends in Fort Worth. Walton's attorney released a statement acknowledging the incident and expressing regret.^[14][15]

Walton is divorced, having been married briefly in her 20s.^[2][6]

See also[link]

• Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
• The Walton family

References[link]

External links[link]

• Forbes The World's Billionaires: Alice Walton, 2007
• Forbes The 400 Richest Americans: Alice Walton, 2007
• Alice Walton's contributions to Crystal Bridges Museum