Bentonville museum adds 5 20th-century works
Posted on Friday, October 3, 2008
BENTONVILLE — Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art unveiled five paintings from the modernist era that will be included in its permanent collection Thursday at its downtown Bentonville headquarters.
The announcement, which was presented in a lecture format for local media, is the first of several expected in the next year.
The number of works the museum plans to unveil will “dwarf the amount of what has already been announced,” said Bob Workman, the museum’s executive director.
Workman said that the museum needs to use more imagery with its education programs and that the new announcements also will help marketing.
“And I just think, too, people have been very patient, and we want to keep the enthusiasm going,” he said.
The museum has announced the names of more than 30 paintings in its permanent collection, including the five revealed Thursday, since Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton announced plans to build in 2005.
The permanent collection is expected to include between 200 and 300 works.
Chris Crosman, the museum’s chief curator, led Thursday’s announcement with information about each piece unveiled.
The works are: Schlossgasse, painted by Lyonel Feininger, 1915 Little Joe with Cow, painted by Yasuo Kuniyoshi, 1923 Still Life with Flowers, painted by Stuart Davis, 1930 Still Life: Kuniyoshi’s Studio, painted by Bumpei Usui, 1930 Sacrifice, painted by Romare Bearden, 1941
Crosman shared background of the pieces that tied them to works already announced.
For example, Feininger painted Schlossgasse the same year he met and befriended artist Marsden Hartley, whose painting Hall of the Mountain King also will be included in the museum’s permanent collection.
Crosman said museum staff also are researching a regional link to Usui, a Japanese-American who was interned in an Arkansas camp during World War II.
Still Life with Flowers was the only work announced Thursday that was purchased through auction, Workman said. The painting is on loan to the St. Louis Art Museum.
It was purchased at a Dec. 1, 2005, auction at Christie’s in New York for $ 3. 152 million, according to www. artnet. com, an online database that tracks purchases and other information about works of art.
Workman and Crosman said the announcement was an effort to help people understand how the museum is developing its collection.
Workman said this gives a glimpse of how the museum is a collection and not a gathering of items.
The newly announced works help the museum move its collection into the 20 th century, though not very far, said Shannon Dillard Mitchell, director of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Fine Arts Center Gallery. “It broadens the appeal of the collection for artists and viewers and visitors in the region,” she said.
To contact this reporter: aotoole@arkansasonline. com
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