Upper-Level Member Travel Program

Society of Fellows Travel Program


Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Friday, May 11, 2012
Society of Fellows and Business Council

The Crystal Bridges of American Art officially opens November 11, 2011.

 “It’s a game-changing occurrence, potentially as significant as the creation of the Museum of Modern Art in 1930 or the National Gallery of Art in 1937.” Art & Antiques Magazine, October, 2011.

Please join the Society of Fellows and the Business Council for the day on May 11, 2012, when we venture to this extraordinary new museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Margi Conrads, Samuel Sosland Curator of American Art, and Jan Schall, Sanders Sosland Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art, will accompany us.

Alice Walton, a serious, lifelong art collector, established the museum intending that it become a major repository of American art from Colonial to contemporary. She said, “I never would have thought of collecting anything but American, truly. This is the heartland of the country. It’s what should be here.”
               
Business Council members will recall that Alice Walton was the keynote speaker at the 2008 Business Council Annual Dinner and spoke about the new museum.                                                                                                                               
Acquisitions include Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington; Norman Rockwell’s Rosie the Riveter; Jasper Johns’ Alphabets and an Andy Warhol silkscreen of Dolly Parton. Her $35 million purchase of Asher Brown Durand’s Kindred Spirits was front-page news. In addition, there are commissioned site-specific works, including a giant stainless steel “tree” by Roxy Paine and a hypnotic light installation by James Turrell.
Ms. Walton has amassed substantial bodies of work by Martin Johnson Heade, Stuart Davis, George Bellows and John Singer Sargent.

World-renowned Moshe Safdie, the architect of Kansas City’s new Kauffman Center for Performing Arts, designed the spectacular 201,000-square-foot complex of buildings set on 120 acres of Ozark forest and ponds.

“A spectacular museum outside Bentonville, Arkansas” is the New York Times description of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Spring is a lovely season in the Ozarks – the perfect time to visit.

Please join us!

Space is limited. If you have questions, please call Betsy Winetroub at 816.751.0452.

Contact us for more information about the Travel Program or for a specific itinerary.