Beyond The Big Bang

The importance of the Stieglitz Collection currently on show at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is as deep, wide and diverse as the 101 works of art contained within it.

Alfred Stieglitz, born Jan. 1, 1864, first earned fame as a photographer and later as a gallery owner and art promoter in New York City. But his most enduring contribution to the art world was the enormous collection of modern art he amassed, including works by his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe.

When Stieglitz died in 1946, O’Keeffe divided the collection and donated works to six institutions: Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn.; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Chicago Art Institute; the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress, both in Washington, D.C.

Although museums have collaborated for years to create touring exhibitions and to fill out exhibits with specific works of art on loan, it took a legal battle and unprecedented compromise for Fisk University and CrystalBridges Museum to co-own and share custody of the university’s Stieglitz Collection.

“By sharing this collection, Crystal Bridges and Fisk University are making these works accessible to a wide audience,” Crystal Bridges Executive Director Rod Bigelow said when the exhibit opened Nov.

1. “We are excited to be partnering on several educational programsin conjunction with the exhibition, including public lectures by Fisk University professionals and Stieglitz scholars. In January, Crystal Bridges is holding a special Scholars Symposium, offering the top scholars in the field of American modern art the opportunity to view the collection in its entirety and to share ideas and research into Stieglitz and his circle.

“We are excited aboutopening up this avenue for increased scholarship into the collection and are looking forward to continuing to work with Fisk University to preserve and exhibit these works.”

But Niki Ciccotelli Stewart, director of education and exhibitions, also measures the importance of the collection’s two-year debut in Bentonville in very human terms.

Because the Stieglitz Collection spans the careers of several artists and because that includes “artists we have shown since day one in our permanent collection galleries, our visitors, our members, our guests get to take another step” in their study of and appreciation for modern art, Stewart says.

“It’s not uncommon to get to see multiple works from a single artist (in an exhibition),” she says, but it’s less common to see a “large, fully realized” painting - like the one by Charles Demuth - hanging next to “sketches that seem more loose, earlier in their stages, maybe not even done. We get to see all the different ways he got to what we know him for.”

Stewart says viewers also get to know more about the artists because their works chronicle their travels. All of that lends to the growing relationship between Northwest Arkansans and the museum, which opened on Nov. 11, 2011.

“Many people come in as explorers,” she says. “With this exhibition, they don’t come in with idea of what they’re going to see, as they did with the Norman Rockwell show. One of the things they’re looking for is artworks by O’Keeffe. We all know Georgia, even if it’s through a calendar you once had.

“What they find is that they had no idea there was such a direct connection between the European works of art Stieglitz showed and the American art also in this exhibition.

They begin to have the ability to make a direct connection. And they’re coming out talking about having had that experience.”