2,000 art pieces and growing

— BENTONVILLE - The permanent collection at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has continued to expand since the museumopened a year ago.

In that time, officials have added more than 500 items, raising the total size of the collection to about 2,000 works.

Most of the additions areworks on paper, but they also include eight paintings on other surfaces and five sculptures, museum spokesman Diane Carroll said.

David Cateforis, a profes-sor of art history at the University of Kansas, said most museums grow and develop their collections over long spans of time. Crystal Bridges is remarkable because it has assembled its collection over a relatively short period of time, in part through the wealth of founders Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation, he said.

“A lot of the best quality in American art that was still in private hands has made it onto the walls of her museums,” Cateforis said.

While the collection is not as vast as that of other museums, he said, few others have the resources to afford some of the costlier pieces that Crystal Bridges has acquired.

In October, the museum announced the acquisition of abstract impressionist painter Mark Rothko’s No. 210/No. 211 (Orange). The Wall Street Journal reported that the painting likely cost about $25 million, but Crystal Bridges officials have not commented on the price.

“Most museums don’t spend a fraction of that on art,” Cateforis said, adding that museums would typically need a donor to buy such an expensive piece.

Curator Kevin Murphy said Crystal Bridges will have a smaller collection than an encyclopedic museum like the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which has 100,000 works going back to ancient times.

That’s because the Bentonville museum has a more narrow focus, exclusively displaying works of American art, he said. Murphy said the Bentonville museum’s collection might represent two departments - American art and contemporary art - that would be in a more-comprehensive art museum.

“We focus on one aspect of a larger story of art history - the American story,” he said.

Crystal Bridges has loaned eight pieces to other museums. Those loans include three paintings by George Wesley Bellows for an exhibition of his work organized by the National Gallery of Art, Murphy said. The exhibition is to open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this month.

In exchange, the National Gallery of Art allowed Crystal Bridges to borrow three portraits of women, one by Bellows from 1914, one by John Singer Sargent from 1902 and a head-to-toe portrait by James McNeil Whistler from the late 19th century.

“This is the kind of painting that may never be available,” Murphy said of the Whistler portrait. “Most of them are already in public collections.”

The galleries of Crystal Bridges accommodate about 450 pieces at a time. Since themuseum opened last year, curators have updated gallery walls with pieces from the permanent collection that were not on display previously.

Among the newest pieces now on display is a 2007 cedar-and-graphite sculptureUnraveling by Ursula von Rydingsvard. The 15-piece 1 sculpture - which is 11/2 feet tall and 18 1/2 feet wide - has an organic, cascading look as it hangs on a wall, Murphy said.

Frequent museum visitor and volunteer John Czuba said he saw pieces of the sculpture in one of the galleries while it was being assembled.

Czuba, a retired engineer from New York, typically volunteers at Crystal Bridges two or three times a week, and takes time to walk through the galleries at least once a month to stay up-to-date on the displays.

One of his favorite paintings is Kindred Spirits by Asher Durand because it reflects the Hudson River Valley where he grew up. The painting, the first acquisition Walton announced before construction began on the museum, is considered a cornerstone of the collection.

Czuba has watched the many additions to the late 20th Century Gallery, which now contains some of the works previously featured in Wonder World, a temporary exhibit of contemporary works from the museum’s permanent collection. Thoseworks included Sound Suit by Nick Cave, a suit of knitted and crocheted fabric accented with toys.

“I think they need to refresh the galleries, which will keep people interested in Crystal Bridges,” Czuba said. “I think people need to learn more and appreciate American art.”

Wonder World also previously displayed After the Last Supper, a 2005 work by Devorah Sperber. The piece is an upside-down version of Leonardo da Vinci’s 1520 era painting The Last Supper, created with nearly 21,000 spools of thread. The work includes a small viewing sphere that makes the image clear and right side up.

After the Last Supper is no longer on display, but the late 20th Century Gallery offers a similar 2006 work by Sperber, After Grant Wood (American Gothic) 2, which consists of nearly 1,000 spools of thread.

Other pieces added to gallery walls since the museum opened a year ago include Feather and Brown Leaf, a 1935 oil on canvas by Georgia O’Keefe, and Painting No. 8, a black-and-white oil on canvas from 1912-13 by Marsden Hartley. Hartley’s piece includes two suns and mountains in black on a light background.

“It’s a painting that reflects the natural world, but it becomes its own kind of thing,” Murphy said. “A lot of us were really excited to get this painting out.”

In the spring, Murphy said, Thomas Hart Benton’s 1943 painting Tobacco Sorters was added with early 20th century art near another Benton painting, Ploughing It Under, an oil-on-canvas from 1934 that Benton reworked in 1964. The painting depicts a man and a young girl handling large, golden leaves.

“He can make this leaf translucent so you can see the hand of the girl through [it],” Murphy said. “It makes this wall come alive.”

In the 1940s, Benton painted advertisements for a tobacco company, including Tobacco Sorters. Company executives decided against using the painting and cajoled Benton into buying it back.He described it as one of his best works, Murphy said.

“We didn’t have a great agricultural subject from that era,” Murphy said. “This is his heyday.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 11/11/2012

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