Major Art Museum Opens In An Unlikely Place: Arkansas

Bentonville, Arkansas (AP) - As the heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, Alice Walton could afford to buy any work of art on the market. So he grabbed a masterpiece after another iconic portrait of George Washington, the romantic landscapes of the 19 th century, classic Norman Rockwell.

He gathered an enviable collection of treasures to cover most of American history, and is now unlikely to present a site, a wooded ravine in a small town in northwest Arkansas.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as the most important nation in the new art museum than a generation, offering exhibitions type more commonly found in New York or Los Angeles. But this room of paintings takes shape in Bentonville, a community of 35,000 people, known as the home of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. headquarters.

Walton together a collection of "a sort of museum instant," said Henry Adams, professor of art history at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Instead, start small and slowly growing collection with Crystal Bridges is fully formed from the beginning.

"You generally do not have a museum that appears out of nowhere," said Adams, who classified the new place "somewhere between the top and the middle" of American museums.

When the museum opens its doors on November 11 will be displayed many paintings publicly for the first time because Walton purchased from private collections.

In the case of public art, their efforts to acquire Walton did howls of some art lovers and critics on the East Coast, who regretted the idea that honey works were seized for display in a mountain village Ozark.

But experts say that the story has been told before.

"Think about how the owners of the largest collections of Europe and England must have felt in the early 20th century when many of their art was to come in this country," said David M. Sokol, professor of Art History Emeritus at the University of Chicago.

At that time spent businessmen as Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie their fortunes to acquire the art of wealthy Europeans, many of whom sold their paintings to maintain lavish lifestyle.

A piece in mind, the dispute was a masterpiece of Asher Durand's "Kindred Spirits", a description of the Catskill Mountains dream two men, who for generations had been exposed in the New York Public Library. Walton bought it in 2005, reported $ 35 million, sparking a cry that the library was the beloved head of European history.

He also acquired Thomas Eakins portrait of a doctor, professor reported $ 20 million from Thomas Jefferson University.

Much of the art has deep ties to the region. The collection includes works by the painter and muralist Thomas Hart Benton, great-nephew of Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, the outspoken advocate of Manifest Destiny, Bentonville who was appointed in 1830.

Walton was an art collector long before the proposed opening of a museum, and began buying specifically for the project in 2005. His plan was to create something important to her hometown, a community that has more than doubled in size since 1990, mainly due to Wal-Mart, which has attracted many of its suppliers to open offices here.

Walton asked for expert help with their purchases. She was advised by John Wilmerding, a former chief curator and deputy director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. He also serves on the board of the museum.

Crystal Bridges will be about 440 works on display. About 800 more are in storage, available to cool the permanent collection, temporary exhibitions or lend it to other institutions.

The museum is a 10 minute walk through the woods instead of downtown Bentonville on 120 acres that have long been held by the Walton family. The apparatus consists of 3 ½ miles of trails.

Director Don Bacigalupi said: "There are many places where you can go and experience this wonderful park environment, the natural landscape, and then find a great museum and a collection of architecturally-wise."

Walton, 62, is the youngest of Wal-Mart Sam Walton, founder of four children. Listed by Forbes as the richest of America 10, with a fortune of $ 20.9 billion.

She refused to be interviewed and have never revealed how she spent on the complex. But the museum received a grant of 800 million Walton Family Foundation. And thanks to a grant of $ 20 million Wal-Mart, it will not charge an entry under $ 10.

The inaugural exhibition, entitled "Celebrating the American spirit," takes visitors on a tour of the highlights in the development of the nation.

Visitors first encounter portraits of the revolutionary war in the gallery of the colonial era, then go to the minutes of the first settlers and Native Americans, followed by pictures of the civil war era. Norman Rockwell "Rosie the Riveter" of World War II is there too, like the paintings that reflect the era of civil rights.

The galleries mixing natural and artificial light, a key architect Moshe Safdie design. Glass corridors between buildings, provides a broad view of grounds, including a stream fed by three sources. One source, Crystal Spring, the museum takes its name.

For an out-of-state visitors, the journey is short and simple. Bentonville is a two-hour drive from the nearest major airport in Tulsa, while nearby, and the growing Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport is a few kilometers from the city.

But tourism officials expect the museum to become even more popular than the landmark $ 160 million Clinton Presidential Center, which opened in 2004 to help revitalize downtown Little Rock, even after the recession led tourists away in neighboring states.

Walton has plans for growth, the New York Times said it is committed to the project only after having received the support of his nephews and nieces. Walton has no children.

Andrew Walker, director of the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, said it is not hard to imagine that art lovers from around the world arrive at the regional airport on the way Crystal Bridges. A hotel is planned to open in about a year, specifically to accommodate wealthy visitors to the museum.

"It 'a kind of an interesting time," if the area is growing a great art center, said Walker. "We can not always see in so small a target."

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