We spent the day in Bentonville visiting the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Norm had been introduced to it on the Sunday Morning Show. It opened last November and has had rave reviews instantly becoming a lasting monument to Alice Walton, daughter of Sam Walton (Walmart). “The mission of Crystal Bridges is to celebrate the American spirit in a setting that unites the power of art with the beauty of nature.” Dramatic glass and copper “bridges” form a series of pavilions surrounding spring-fed ponds that house galleries, a restaurant, meeting rooms, classrooms and a hall for special events. Moshe Safdie designed a beautiful building in a park like setting with gardens and paved trails.
The museum was founded in 2005 by Alice Walton, who chairs the board of directors, with $1.2 billion given by the Walton Family Foundation. Alice Walton began collecting art for the museum in 2004 and hasn’t stopped. I don’t think there is anything like it covering art from the Colonial period to the present. We visited the traveling exhibit first; The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision. This period of American art is a favorite of mine and the exhibit was the largest collection I have seen in one place! We had lunch before going into the main exhibit galleries with our IPOD audio guides. They were so easy to use and had multiple choices of passages to listen to on each painting they chose to present. Some were conversations with Alice Walton and museum curators. We didn’t surface again until 5:00 after walking through a couple hundred years of American art. Many names I knew and many were new to me. It was really quite amazing. Walmart Stores Inc. Foundation gave $10 million to cover the cost of free admission for the public for five years. They have encouraged school groups to visit paying all the expenses of the field trip down to the salary of a substitute teacher to stay behind with any students not able to come. They had a couple of places with sofas, comfy chairs and art books where you can flip through and rest your weary legs. They didn’t place the gift shop as a must see in order to exit the museum. They had beautiful and interesting things to purchase but you only entered if you were interested. So many nice features!
Some of my favorites:
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