Bentonville, AK, is the corporate headquarters for Walmart. Well aware of the cons and pros of the company, we came for the highly touted Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
But we found beauty before we got to northwestern Arkansas. This fall’s trip was dedicated to seeing beautiful foliage, which is why we went up to Vermont and traveled along the Appalachian Mountains. We have been successful as photographs have shown. Once we got on Interstate 40 and crossed the Mississippi River our hopes for color diminished. We had entered the plains expecting the end of trees. We were wrong, there are still areas with trees bearing yellow, orange and red leaves. Our real surprise was when we left Little Rock and headed north through the Ozarks and the Boston Mountains. This area may have been the best color of the whole trip. Anna Lee kept snapping pictures out the window as we drove along.
That was the beginning of an almost perfect above-expectations experience. Where the “almost perfect” applies was at the Walmart Visitor’s Center, our first stop in town.
This is where Sam opened his first five and dime. No admission is charged for the museum and photos are allowed. The static displays told about the wonderful world of Sam Walton and his values, including his devotion to his employees.
His simple office and the pickup he drove are part of the display. Now, he died in 1992, so he may not be responsible for what we hear about Walmart today, but the braggadocio was disturbing. What did impress us was his business and economic savvy that built a global empire from one small store in 1950 in Bentonville, AK.
An article in the February 11 The New Yorker discussed Brendan O’Connell, an artist captivated by the shelves of Walmart stores. At first, he was tossed out of the stores. Now he is painting regularly at Walmart including this, one of his first Walmart paintings.
Sam liked to talk about the spark of his employees and his company. That spark symbol is now the company logo as shown during a toy fair outside the museum.
After the Walmart museum tour, we returned to our motorhome parked in an Elks Lodge parking lot. We joined the Friday night dinner group and enjoyed a fried chicken dinner and good conversation.
In the morning we went on one of our 10K volksmarches. This one took us around town on an “exceeds expectation” walk along the wonderful trails that surround the Crystal Bridges Museum. We again enjoyed some fall foliage. The Art Trail sculpture garden has excellent pieces, many of them quite whimsical. Each area we traversed was beautiful.
Our walk started and ended at the Bentonville Library. They have a small café with tasty sandwiches at very low prices. What really impressed us were the programs offered at the library and the large number of families using it on this Saturday morning before a major college football game.
As we walked past the road leading to the museum, we got our first taste of the art that was inside. These hay figures have been installed for over ten years. One can't help but wonder if one of them is a Walmart employee.
After our walk we returned to Crystal Bridges, the highlight of a great day. On 11/11/11, Alice Walton, daughter of Sam, and, according to Bloomberg, the 14th richest person in the world, opened Crystal Bridges with a collection currently worth $500 million and now one of the top American Art museums. It was designed by Israeli/Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, who also designed Yad Vashem.
We joined an orientation tour and again were fortunate to have an excellent docent. We found the staff of the museum most friendly and helpful during our four-hour visit. Another plus is that they welcome photography.
The architecture is wonderful with large rooms showcasing exhibits and sunny hallways with comfortable chairs and tables filled with art books and computers for visitors to use and views like this.
The collection goes back to the 1700s with a series of five portraits of the Frank family, one of the first Jewish families to settle in the New World.
They were probably painted by a luminary, a traveling portraitist, who had canvasses readied with the painted bodies and merely added heads to the paintings. These were part of a large collection of paintings from the colonial to early American periods.
This Gilbert Stuart painting was a gift to Alexander Hamilton for the signing of the Jay Treaty safeguarding US ships trading along North American borders.
We went through halls filled with Hudson River, impressionist, abstract, and contemporary art, each time having an art appreciation lesson. It was also a chance to tie together art experiences we have had along this trip, particularly our third encounter with the Wyeths.
We were finally able to photograph a Wyeth, this one by Jamie.
This painting of Robert Lewis Stevenson (books illustrated by Wyeth, see earlier blog) and his wife is by John Singer Sargent.
Walking through a museum this large can be very tiring and this fellow just seems to have stopped for a rest. Actually, we saw a work by the same artist in the Kohler museum (see earlier blog entry)
We have been to Norman Rockwell’s museum in MA (see blog entry from 2011) and saw an excellent traveling collection in Sacramento and now we have a photo of one of his most famous paintings, Rosie the Riveter.
After the guided tour, we again went through the museum to spend time enjoying paintings we had missed.
Talking into the horn on this one caused it to play Beethoven's music. The work is entitled Beethoven's Ear.
There is no admission charge for the museum, parking and the audio tour. A permanent endowment is provided for free admission and lunch for school groups. Even the café and gift shop have reasonable prices. Walton (not Walmart) money is doing something very good in the arts for this small community and the surrounding area. We were quite impressed.
Curiosity:
Why doesn’t the Walmart in Bentonville allow overnight parking (though we saw a small rig in the back of the lot)?
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