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Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

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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 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission.

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Panoramic view of the museum
Map
Interactive fullscreen map
Established11 November 2011 (2011-11-11)[1]
Location600 Museum Way,
Bentonville, Arkansas
Coordinates36°22′57.0″N 94°12′13.0″W / 36.382500°N 94.203611°W / 36.382500; -94.203611
TypeAmerican art
FounderAlice Walton
DirectorRod Bigelow
ArchitectMoshe Safdie
Nearest car parkfree garage and surface lot on site
Websitecrystalbridges.org
Crystal Bridges at dusk

Overview and founding

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Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart 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 and engineer Buro Happold features a series of pavilions nestled around two creek-fed ponds and forest trails. The soil is flinty silt loam derived from chert and cherty limestone and is mapped as Noark-Bendavis complex.[2] The 217,000 square feet (20,200 m2) complex includes galleries, meeting and classroom spaces, a library, a sculpture garden, a museum store designed by architect Marlon Blackwell, a restaurant and coffee bar, named Eleven after the day the museum opened, "11/11/11".[3] Crystal Bridges also features 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 300 people, and is within walking distance of downtown Bentonville.[4]

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.[5] It is the first major art museum (over $200 million endowment) to open in the United States since 1974. Over $317 million of the project's cost has been donated by Alice Walton.[5] In 2023, Forbes called Walton the richest woman in the United States, with assets worth $66.5 billion.[6]

In 2005, art historian John Wilmerding was hired for acquisition and advice on museum programming.[7] 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".[8] 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.[9] He also stated that the museum 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."[8]

 
The main pavilion of the museum features a curved ceiling made with laminated beam supports and bowed glass walls.

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.[10] 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.[10] 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.[11][better source needed] 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.[8]

Don Bacigalupi was appointed director of the museum in August 2009.[12] Previously, Robert G. Workman had served as director.[13] 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.[14] As of July 2023, the museum had listed assets of over $1.7 billion. [15]

Collaboration with other museums and institutions

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Portrait of Professor Benjamin H. Rand (1874) by Thomas Eakins
 
Walker Landing plaza between galleries

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 Cello Player.[16] 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.[17]

Walton held talks with Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph 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.[18] In 2006, 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 in 1949. This agreement became tied up in a legal battle between Fisk University and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in New Mexico,[19] but the museum withdrew its lawsuit. The Tennessee Attorney General attempted unsuccessfully to stop the sale. In October 2010, a judge ruled that a 50% stake in the collection could 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.[20] In April 2012, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision to allow the sale to move forward. A few months later on August 2, the Davidson County Chancery Court approval a Final Agreed Order that established joint ownership between Fisk University and Crystal Bridges through the newly established Stieglitz Art Collection, LLC. The operating agreement required Fisk University to set aside $3.9 million of the $30 million sale proceeds to be used to establish a fund for the care and maintenance of the collection at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University.[21][22] The court dispute cost Fisk University $5.8 million in legal fees.[23]

Since 2012, Crystal Bridges has participated in a four-year collaboration with the musée du Louvre in Paris, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The resulting exhibitions are called American Encounters and feature works from the collections of all four partners. Each year, for the length of the collaboration, the museums develop the exhibition around a theme, such as portraiture. American Encounters has been seen in Paris, Bentonville, and Atlanta.

The Momentary

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Main article: The Momentary

In early 2020, Crystal Bridges opened a satellite facility called The Momentary focused on visual and performing arts, culinary experiences, festivals, and artists-in-residence.[24]

Permanent collection

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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 the contemporary period. All of the featured artists are United States citizens, though some spent most of their art careers in Europe. 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 La Farge, Stuart Davis, Romare Bearden, Norman Rockwell, Mary McCleary, Agnes Pelton, and Walton Ford. Also included are works by Chuck Close, Jasper Johns, Alfred Maurer, Jackson Pollock, Tom Wesselmann and Andrew Wyeth.[9][25] 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.[26][27] 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.[28]

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.[29] In September 2012, the museum announced the acquisition of a major 1960 painting by Mark Rothko entitled No. 210/No. 211 (Orange). The abstract expressionist painting had been in a private Swiss collection since the 1960s and had only been shown in public twice.[30]

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

In January 2014 Crystal Bridges acquired the Bachman–Wilson House by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The New Jersey house was dismantled and relocated to Bentonville.[31][32]

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

Selected works in the museum collection by chronological order

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References

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